Author: Nalchajian Markos

BUSH WILL NOT RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE THIS YEAR, US POLITICAL SCIENTISTS CONSIDER

Pan Armenian News
22.04.2005 02:59

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Despite the pressure exerted by the Armenian lobby,
the Bush Administration will not acknowledge the Armenian Genocide,
Turkish press writes according to some US political correspondents. The
Armenian Diaspora of the US has addressed countless numbers of
letters to the White House with a call to recognize the Armenian
Genocide. At the same time 32 Senators and 175 members of the House of
Representatives sent a joint letter to President Bush with an appeal
to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide in his commemoration message on
April 24. It should be noted that wife of US Ex-President Hillary
Clinton and democrat John Kerry are among those to have signed the
letter. Campaigns of the kind are launched every year and as compared
to last year the number of the signatories has increased. Armenian
lobbyists stated that George Bush is late with acknowledging the
Genocide, since he hasn~Rt kept his promise since his first election
campaign. As representatives of the Armenian Diaspora note, the
American-Turkish relations have considerably grown cool recently while
the number of radical forces protesting against the White House policy
has increased in Turkey, thus creating a favorable atmosphere for the
Genocide recognition. However political correspondents in Washington
state that despite the chill in the American-Turkish relations and
the fact that the letter to the President was signed by influential
Senators, the White House will not make steps against Turkey and will
not come to decision to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. In their
opinion, the message to the Armenian people this year will not be
different from those of the recent years, since despite some tension
in relations the US still needs Turkey and the White House will not
risk these relations for the sake of Armenians. Turkish officials
also stated of the inadmissibility of the Genocide recognition by the
Bush Administration. Official Ankara stated that before taking such
a step the White House should weigh all the arguments.

A Trip to the Moon
by Omar Metwally

Broadway.com, NY
April 21 2005

About the author:

For Tony-nominated actor Omar Metwally (Sixteen Wounded), performing as
Aram in off-Broadway’s Beast on the Moon has been an amazing learning
experience. Born in Queens to parents who immigrated to America,
Metwally has come to appreciate their struggle for a new life in a
new world. Richard Kalinoski’s Beast on the Moon, which is currently
playing at the Century Center for the Performing Arts, tells the
tale of a married couple’s efforts to start a family and a new life
in America, but they are at a standstill when dealing with emotional
scars from unforgettable torture and loss of family during the tragic
Armenian genocide. Besides his Tony-nominated turn in Sixteen Wounded,
Metwally’s other stage credits include Homebody/Kabul, A History
of God, Quartett, The Bacchae 2.1, Company, The Winter’s Tale, and
Summertime. Here, Metwally shares what he has learned in order to
play the heartfelt Aram, and what is making him work so hard to send
out the overall message of Beast on the Moon.

The first time I read Richard Kalinoski’s play Beast on the Moon,
I was deeply moved and excited by it. I thought it one of the most
complex, heightened and beautiful scripts I had read in ages, full of
humor and pain. It is a story about survival, about slaughter, about
love. Beast on the Moon follows two young survivors of the Armenian
genocide, Aram and Seta, a boy and a girl. The two have each lost
their families in the tragedy and have eventually made their way to
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The play begins the day Seta arrives from an
orphanage in Istanbul as a mail-order bride for her new husband Aram,
who had come to America three years before. Beast deals intimately
and intensely with the tragedies that befell these people in their
native land, and with how their losses affect the relationship they
try to build with each other. So the first thing I had to do was learn
as much as I could about this tragic event that had shaped Aram’s life.

Prior to my reading Beast on the Moon, I had only a vague awareness
of the Armenian genocide of 1915-23. But as soon as I read the play,
I rushed to the library to find out more. I was shocked to learn
that between 1915 and 1923 the Young Turk government of the Ottoman
Empire carried out an organized campaign to slaughter its Armenian
population. This was done primarily through the rounding up and
murder of the men, and the deportation of women, children and the
elderly into the desert via forced march. While on these marches,
the Armenians were subject to robbery, rape, abduction and murder
by soldiers and roving gangs, and many more perished of starvation,
exposure and disease. All told, between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians
lost their lives.

It was the first genocide of the 20th century, and I couldn’t believe
how little I had heard of this massive tragedy. And then I learned
that the federal government of Turkey still denies the genocide to
this day, 90 years later. Such denial not only prevents healing and
dialogue between the affected communities, but it sends the message
that crimes of this kind can go unpunished and even unrecognized. As my
awareness grew, so did my urgent desire to help bring this important
and powerful play to New York. But the thing about Beast on the Moon
that I found most inspiring was the way that its central characters,
in the wake of a horrific tragedy, refuse to abandon the hope and
struggle for renewal. That’s why I think the play is so relevant and
why audiences seem to respond so strongly to it. In times where the
value of human life seems to be widely forgotten or willfully ignored,
a play about two people who find the strength to connect and heal in
spite of such violence is very timely.

Beast on the Moon is also a story about America and the joys and
struggles of being an immigrant in this country. As the child of two
immigrants, this aspect of the play touched me deeply. The hope and
excitement of what America meant to people around the world, as well
as the confusion and pain of trying to make a life here are all a
part of this play as well. In this regard, working on Aram brought
me closer to understanding some of the struggles and journeys taken
by my own parents.

The other part of my experience with Beast on the Moon has been
the incredible good fortune to work with the artists who have been
assembled for this project. My castmates Lena Georgas, Louis Zorich,
and Matt Borish are all extraordinary actors and I have learned so
much from each of them. And our director Larry Moss is the perfect
shepherd for this play. His immense skills as an acting coach and his
encyclopedic knowledge of the theater are a humbling and inspiring
combination for any actor. He creates an atmosphere in rehearsal that
truly encourages risk and exploration. So often these ideas are given
lip service but not really honored. But Larry creates an environment
that makes us feel relaxed and yet inspired to work harder than we
ever have before.

Armenia’s Jewish Hero

The Jewish Week, NY
April 20 2005

Jewish ambassador to the Ottoman Empire urged the U.S. government to
stop the Genocide.
Steve Lipman – Staff Writer

The recent $20 million settlement between a major American insurance
firm and the heirs of Armenian policyholders killed in the Armenian
Genocide had its genesis, indirectly, in the memoirs written nearly
90 years ago by a Jewish-American diplomat.

Henry Morgenthau Sr., the German native who served as U.S. ambassador
to the Ottoman Empire during World War I, wrote in 1918 in “Ambassador
Morgenthau’s Story” about an exchange with Talaat Pasha, Turkey’s
Interior Minister and an architect of the Genocide.

“The New York Life Insurance Company and the Equitable Life of New
York had for years done considerable business among the Armenians,”
Morgenthau wrote. “One day Talaat made what was perhaps the most
astonishing request I had ever heard. ‘I wish,’ Talaat now said,
‘that you would get the American life insurance companies to send us
a complete list of their Armenian policyholders.’

“They are practically all dead now,” victims of the Genocide,
the Turkish official told the ambassador, “and have left no heirs
to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the State. The
government is the beneficiary now.”

Morgenthau lost his temper.

” ‘You will get no such list from me,’ I said, and I got up and
left him.”

Vartkes Yeghiayan, an Armenian-American attorney in California,
read this story in Morgenthau’s book in 1988 and decided to bring a
class-action suit against New York Life.

The result was the settlement, announced earlier this year at the
New York office of the Armenian General Benevolent Union.

New York Life, acknowledging some 2,400 unpaid policies sold to
Armenians before the Genocide, agreed on a $20 million payment to
nine Armenian organizations, including the AGBU, and descendants of
policyholders who filed claims by last month’s deadline.

Participants in the AGBU ceremony said the settlement, the first known
one to kin of people who were killed in the Genocide, was inspired by
the reparations and insurance payments received over the last several
decades by survivors of the Holocaust.

Morgenthau was given due credit at the event.

The ambassador, who died in 1946, is considered a hero in Armenia,
where a tree in his honor stands on the Walk of Righteous
Non-Armenians. His grandson, Manhattan District Attorney Robert
Morgenthau, was granted honorary Armenian citizenship.

“I was very aware of his involvement,” Morgenthau said of his
grandfather. “He had a lot of friends in the Armenian community.”

After returning to the United States from his posting in
Constantinople, Morgenthau Sr., who was active in Jewish affairs and
was a founder of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee,
took up the cause of the Armenians.

While in Turkey, he had helped rescue an unknown number of Armenians.

“I’ve had people walk up to me and say, ‘Your grandfather saved my
life,’ ” Morgenthau said. “He did a lot of things he never talked
about.”

In a 1915 dispatch to the State Department, the ambassador wrote that
“a campaign of race extermination is in progress.” He continued
to press the then-neutral United States to take actions against
the Genocide.

“When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations
[that constituted the main form of the Genocide], they were merely
giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well,”
Morgenthau Sr. wrote in his memoirs. “Perhaps the one event in history
that most resembles the Armenian deportations was the expulsion of
the Jews from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella.”

One time a prominent member of the German Jewish community –
Germany and Turkey were wartime allies – approached Morgenthau Sr.,
appealing to the envoy “as one Jew to another” to stop lobbying for the
Armenians. Turkey and Germany might seek to have Morgenthau recalled,
jeopardizing his career, the visitor said.

“Then you go back to the German Embassy, and … say … go ahead
and have me recalled,” Morgenthau Sr. answered. “If I am to suffer
martyrdom, I can think of no better cause in which to be sacrificed.
In fact, I would welcome it, for I can think of no greater honor than
to be recalled because I, a Jew, have been exerting all my powers to
save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Christians.”

Morgenthau said he heard such stories about his grandfather over
the years.

“He certainly had an influence on me and my father,” he said.

Morgenthau has been active in the pro-Armenian cause. And his father,
Henry Morgenthau Jr., secretary of the Treasury under President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, used his influence with the president to
establish the War Refugee Board, which late in World War II saved
more than 200,000 Jews from the Holocaust.

AMERICA ENTERING THE ARMENIAN LIBRARIES

A1plus

| 17:56:05 | 20-04-2005 | Social |

The UA Embassy to Armenia cooperates with different libraries to open
American corners. Today the first corner was opened in Yerevan in
the library after Avetiq Isahakyan. One of the rooms of the second
floor was devoted to the USA, Here there are educating books and
books about art, and also official publications.

The US Ambassador John Evans took part in the opening of the first
~SAmerican corner~T. Hasmik Karapetyan, head of the library, noted
gladly that the event testifies to the fact that the argument with
the Yerevan municipality about the decision of moving the library
from the building has been solved.

The next American corner will be opened in Gyumri, and afterwards
they will open in all over Armenia. In these rooms the readers can
find rich literature in English and especially about America. There
is also material for the students.

The American centers also have other attractive points; computers
connected to the internet, different CDs the usage of which is free
of charge.

Newropeans Magazine, France
April 20 2005

New pressures on Turkey …
Written by Elodie Boussonnière

Negotiations on Turley’s accession to the EU is about to start and
leaders of the 25 EU members are expected to give their approbation
to begin talks with Ankara as early as October 2005. Turkey needs to
prepare itself for tough discussions as various delicate questions
such as the “so-called Armenian” issue will undoubtedly be raised.
Indeed, various EU member states, mainly France, affirmed the
Armenian issue will certainly be part of the essential questions
asked during the negotiations process but will not be a pre-condition
for accession into the EU.

As Armenia is preparing the upcoming 90th anniversary of the WWI
tragedy on the 24th of April 2005, French Foreign Minister Michel
Barnier raises the question of the “so-called Armenian genocide”. He
demands Turkey to recognize the massacre of more than 1, 5 million
Armenians during the final years of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to
1917 as genocide. “Turkey has a duty to remember” he says and talking
about the Armenian question “it is a question that we will raise in
the course of negotiations, and we have around 10 years to raise it.”

As many commentators alleged, France’s position on this question is
also supported by the leaders of the large Armenian community living
in France (approximately 400 000 people). In this respect, the
attitude of France has been interpreted by many EU politicians and by
Turkey as an excuse of France to delay Turkey’s negotiations and to
confirm its reluctance in admitting Turkey into the EU. For the
record, only 38% of Frenchmen and women would be in favor of a
European enlargement towards Turkey.

France is not the only country which has officially recognized the
death of millions of Armenians during the First World War as genocide
(French Parliament voted in 2001 and officially qualified the
“Armenian” tragedy as genocide). Indeed, 14 other nations have
recognized the slaughtering of Ottoman Armenians as a “policy of
extermination” of Turkey during the WWI, among them Russia, Lebanon,
Uruguay, and Switzerland, Greece and Canada (and some US states).

Ankara will not bow…

>>From Ankara, the whole story does not sound quit the same as in
Europe and elsewhere. On the 7th of April 2005, Foreign minister
Abdullah Gul affirmed Turkey is very clear about its position on the
problem and “has never and will never recognize any so-called
genocide”. The minister also refuted accusations and declared “What
needs to be done is research, investigate and discuss history, based
on documents and without prejudice, the basis of such discussions
should be scientific and not political”. Mr. Gul also said the
pressures on Turkey were high and should not be taken into account
during the EU negotiations process. He also mentioned the very
developed and organized campaigns set up in Armenia and in Europe to
“discredit Turkey”.

According to the general opinion, Turkey has no attention whatsoever
to bow to the pressures of the European Union and admit that the
million Armenians deaths was the tragic result of Turkish’s policies
during the war. Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the Turkish President said “It is
wrong and unjust for our European friends to press Turkey on these
issues…these claims upset and hurt the feelings of the Turkish
nation”. Ankara has also pointed out that many Muslims, mainly Turks
and Kurds were killed during the same years.

As for Armenia, which borders Turkey to the North, political leaders
say they will continue their claims to seek for international
recognition of the Armenian slaughter. The Armenian issue is a
long-lasting problem between Turkey and Armenia; therefore, Mr.
Abdullah Gul invited Armenia to create a joint commission of
historians and specialists of both countries which will determine
whether the events can be qualified as genocide or not. So far,
Armenia has not replied to the Turkish invitation.

–Boundary_(ID_sZvJRoUyCshWm85NSqRGyg)–

Armenian minister confirms peace settlement in Karabakh
By Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
April 19, 2005 Tuesday

YEREVAN, April 19 — Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan does
not think that “a war with Azerbaijan may resume in the near future.”

“Tension on the border between the two republics has slightly eased,
but the general situation is unstable,” Sarkisyan said in the National
Press Club on Tuesday.

The minister said he had always called for settling the Karabakh
problem on the basis of compromises.

AUTHOR EXPLORES HUMAN NATURE, ARMENIAN GENOCIDE THROUGH FICTION WRITING

The University of Wisconsin (Madison)
4/19/2005

CONTACT: Judith Claire Mitchell
PHONE: (608) 263-3773
EMAIL: [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MADISON – A fat packet of letters, written by a friend’s great-aunt
during World War I, inspired Judith Claire Mitchell, assistant professor
of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to write “The Last
Day of the War” (Pantheon Books, 2004), her first novel. To Mitchell,
those letters exemplified a key aspect of human nature; fiction, she
thought, would be an ideal medium to explore it.

“Clearly the aunt had gone to France in 1919 as a YMCA Girl because that
was where the boys were, but every now and then the frivolous tone was
interrupted by a startling description of war-ravaged France,” Mitchell
says. “In one letter, a single sentence about an encounter with an
Armenian rug merchant who lost his entire family in the genocide (in
1915-16) caught my attention, particularly because the very next
sentence was all about a dance that the aunt had attended. I was
reminded of the way we can come face to face with unfathomable human
suffering, acknowledge it for a moment and then fix our hair and dance
the night away. I was struck by how human this kind of behavior is, and
I wanted to see if I could create a character that embodied it.”

That character is Yale White, who goes to France hoping to “run into”
the Armenian-American soldier she lusts after. She finds him, and
through him becomes enmeshed in the covert organization he belongs to
(based on the factual Operation Nemesis) whose members are intent on
violently avenging the genocide.

Mitchell adds that one surprising offshoot of the novel has been the
flurry of invitations to speak about the Armenian atrocity. This past
month, for example, she spoke to Rhode Island high school educators
interested in using literature to teach about genocide. She also was the
first novelist invited to lecture at the Armenian Library and Museum in
Watertown, Mass.

Still denied by many Turks, the massacre of 1915-16 accounted for the
deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Early in
1915, Armenians in the army were disarmed, placed into labor battalion
and finally killed. In April, intellectual and political leaders were
rounded up and murdered. Remaining Armenians were arrested in their
houses. Many were shot immediately. Others were told they would be
relocated, and ultimately were: To the concentration camps of Jerablus
and Deir ez-Zor.

However, Mitchell says that current events also had their hand in
shaping the book.

“While I was researching the Armenian genocide, similar slaughters were
taking place in Bosnia and Rwanda. So, in addition to writing about the
human condition, I wanted to call readers’ attention to the first
genocide of the 20th century while commenting indirectly on the
century’s final genocides,” she says.

Mitchell is on leave to work on her second novel, again a historical
exploration of ethnic identity. This fall she will be teaching two
graduate-level courses, a pedagogy class and a fiction workshop for
students in the English department’s relatively new Master of Fine Arts
program. She says that being a writer herself gives her a great deal in
common with her students.

“It’s critical that teachers of creative writing courses be writers who
have struggled with the writing process,” she says. “You need someone
who realizes how hard it is to write.”

Mitchell will read from “The Last Day of the War” at the Armenian
National Committee of Wisconsin’s commemoration of the 90th anniversary
of the Armenian genocide. The event will be held at 10:30 a.m. on
Saturday, April 26, in the State Capitol. For more information on that
event, contact Zohrab Khaligian at [email protected].

###

Barbara Wolff, (608) 262-8292, [email protected]

University Communications
News@UW-Madison
News Releases

Associated Press Worldstream
Montag, 18. April 2005

A 102-year old remembers the horrors of deportations

Armenien gedenkt des »Großen Gemetzels«;
102-jährige erinnert sich mit Grausen an die Vertreibung

von AP-Korrespondent Mike Eckel

Eriwan

Auch mit 102 Jahren erinnert sich Gulinija Mussojan noch an jedes
schreckliche Detail ihrer Vertreibung aus der ottomanischen Türkei.
Mit ihrer Familie wurde sie 1915 mitten in der Nacht aus dem Haus
gejagt und mit tausenden gezwungen, sich ohne Schuhe durch die Wüste
zu schleppen. Wer nicht mehr weiter konnte, wurde getötet oder zum
Sterben in dem öden Bergland zurückgelassen.

»Die türkischen Soldaten schlugen uns mit Peitschen und Säbeln«, sagt
Mussojan, die damals 12 Jahre alt war. Mit 6.000 Frauen, Kindern und
älteren Männern seien sie so vom Mittelmeerdorf Kessab im heutigen
Syrien durch die Steinwüste getrieben worden. »Es war heiß, die Sonne
sengend über uns, wir waren durstig und sie gaben uns nichts zu
trinken, wir hatten nur das Brot, das wir von zu Hause mitgenommen
hatten.« Nach etwa einer Woche seien sie mit ihrer älteren Schwester,
ihrem jüngeren Bruder und ihrer Mutter in dem Ort Hamah, 160
Kilometer südöstlich von Kessab, angekommen.

Hunderttausende Armenier wurden durch die syrische Wüste nach Deir es
Sor nahe der heutigen Grenze zum Irak getrieben. Nach armenischen
Angaben wurden dort viele von ihnen getötet oder starben an Hunger
oder Krankheiten in Konzentrationslagern. Einigen gelang die Flucht
über den Fluss Araxas ins russisch besetzte Armenien. Der 95-jährige
Warasdat Haratjunjan sagt, er sei mit seiner Familie nach
Etschmjadsin, dem Sitz der Armenischen Apostolischen Kirche geflohen.
Er erinnert sich an eine endlose Trauerprozession, weil Tausende an
Cholera und Hunger starben. In einem kühlen Keller seien die Leichen
»wie Feuerholz gestapelt« worden.

Für Armenien und seine Diaspora gibt es nur einen Begriff für die
Ereignisse ab dem 24. Februar 1915: »Mez Eghern« – das Große
Gemetzel. Die Regierung in Eriwan hat den türkischen Nachbarn
aufgefordert, die Verantwortung dafür zu übernehmen. Ein Gelehrter
der Armenischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Nikolai Howschenisjan,
sagt: »Die erste Tragödie ist, wenn man diese Gräueltat begeht. Die
zweite ist es, wenn man sie nach 90 Jahren noch nicht akzeptiert.«
Die Armenier, fügt er hinzu, wollten »ihr eigenes Nürnberg«, ihr
eigenes Kriegsverbrechertribunal.

Während einige Türken in jüngster Zeit an dem Tabu gekratzt haben,
bleibt Ankara bei der Position, dass es keinen Völkermord gegeben
habe. Für Außenminister Abdullah Gül ist der Vorwurf gleichbedeutend
mit übler Nachrede. Ein führender Oppositionspolitiker, Deniz Baykal,
sagt: »Wir können diese Beschuldigungen nicht akzeptieren, dass die
Türkei für etwas verantwortlich gemacht wird, was sie nie gemacht
hat.«

Türkischer Autor als Verräter beschimpft

(Ankara) Als Orhan Parmuk, einer der angesehensten Autoren der
Türkei, Anfang des Jahres erklärte, im Ersten Weltkrieg seien eine
Million Armenier ermordet worden, erntete er einen Sturm der
Entrüstung. Drei Klagen wurden gegen ihn mit der Begründung
eingereicht, er habe der Türkei Schaden zugefügt. In Istanbul
startete eine Schule eine Aktion, seine Bücher einzusammeln und an
ihn zurückzugeben. In einer Abstimmung im Internet war die Mehrheit
der Meinung, seine Erklärung sei eher Verrat als freie
Meinungsäußerung gewesen.

Es gibt aber auch – womöglich wegen des Wunsches der Türkei,
EU-Mitglied zu werden – zarte Versuche zur Kontaktaufnahme mit
Armeniern. Der Vorsitzende des Komitees für EU-Angelegenheiten, Yasar
Yakis, hat Armenier eingeladen, vor seinem Gremium zu sprechen. »Wir
reden beiderseits aneinander vorbei«, erklärt er. »Wenn wir
vielleicht ein Klima schaffen, in dem wir uns zuhören, können wir uns
vielleicht in der Mitte treffen.«

–Boundary_(ID_7+DRZKUfBKwQUCXUbrYeVg)–

Armenian National Committee of America
888 17th St., NW, Suite 904
Washington, DC 20006
Tel: (202) 775-1918
Fax: (202) 775-5648
E-mail: [email protected]
Internet:

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2005
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918

HOUSTON COMMEMORATES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

— Major Texas City Joins Growing Lone Star State
Movement toward Armenian Genocide Recognition

WASHINGTON, DC – Houston Mayor Bill White has shared a proclamation
commemorating the Armenian Genocide with leaders of the Lone Star
State’s growing Armenian American community, delivering a powerful
pro-human rights message in the home state of President George W.
Bush and in the backyard of House Majority Leader Tom Delay,
reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

Armenian Americans in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio,
Galveston, El Paso and throughout the state are coordinating their
efforts through the Texas Joint Committee for the 90th Anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide.

“We want to thank Mayor White for his leadership and to express our
appreciation to all those that made this proclamation possible,
including City Controller Anise Parker, community activist and
local attorney Phil Kanayan, and the Texas Joint Committee for the
90th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide,” said Aram Hamparian,
Executive Director of the ANCA. “This proclamation, which, of
course, holds great meaning for Armenians living in the Houston
area, has national significance as well, coming, as it does, in the
home state of a President who has, for four straight years, broken
his pledge to properly recognize the Armenian Genocide, and in the
backyard of a Congressional leader who has consistently blocked
legislation commemorating this crime against humanity.”

Among the major steps taken this year by the Texas Armenian
community were the hosting of an Armenian Genocide exhibit at the
Holocaust Museum of Houston, the Mayor of Galveston’s Armenian
Genocide proclamation, and the signatures of three Texas
legislators – Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Gene Green (D-TX), and
Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) – on the Congressional letter urging
President Bush to properly recognize the Armenian Genocide. On May
26th, at 6:30pm, Bill Parsons, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Holocaust
Museum will be giving a talk on genocide and “Remembering for the
Sake of the Future” at the Holocaust Museum of Houston. The Joint
Committee for the 90th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide will
cosponsor the event.

In January of last year, ANCA staff from Washington, DC and Los
Angeles conducted a ten day fieldtrip throughout Texas, meeting
with local leaders, briefing members of Congress and other elected
officials, and offering support to the community’s advocacy
efforts.

“We are tremendously proud of the increasingly active, vocal, and
effective Armenian community of Texas, and are committed to making
our unique contribution to, once and for all, ending U.S.
complicity in Turkey’s shameful campaign of genocide denial,” added
ANC-Texas representative Vatche Hovsepian.

#####

PROCLAMATION

Armenian Martyrs Day

WHEREAS, on April 24, 2005, Armenians around the world will
commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide; during
the First World War, the Turkish Empire in an effort of general
extermination and elimination of all traces of a thriving and noble
civilization over 3,000 years old; of the Armenian population in
Eastern Turkey, massacred approximately 1.5 million men, women, and
children in the twentieth century’s first genocides; and

WHEREAS, although the survivors of this massacre were scattered to
all parts of the world, they have maintained their identity and
unity through their church, passing along to each generation not
only a strong Christian faith but a knowledge of their language,
history and culture; and

WHEREAS, the survivors and descendents of this genocide which drove
them from their homeland, recall and commemorate April 24, 1915 as
Armenian Martyr’s Day; and

WHEREAS, the heroic struggles of the Armenian people inspire and
challenge us to cherish and preserve the freedom that is ours; and

WHEREAS, on April 24, 2005, City of Houston residents will be
called together to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide of 1915; and

WHEREAS, this commemoration will serve as an appropriate time for
the people of the City of Houston and others to remember the 1.5
Armenian men, women and children who lost their lives; and

Therefore, I, Bill White, Mayor of the City of Houston, hereby
proclaim April 24, 2005, as Armenian Martyrs Day in Houston, Texas.

Associated Press Worldstream
Montag, 18. April 2005

Interview with the German expert on Armenia Forscher Wolfgang Gust
over the Armenian question

»Sehr genaues Bild von der Planmäßigkeit des Völkermords«;
Interview mit dem deutschen Armenien-Experten Gust über die
Verfolgung der Armenier vor 90 Jahren

Frankfurt/Main

Vor 90 Jahren, am 24. April 1915, begann im damaligen Osmanischen
Reich eine Verfolgung der armenischen Bevölkerung, die bis zu 1,5
Millionen Menschen in den Tod trieb. Das deutsche Kaiserreich war als
einer der engsten Verbündeten der Türkei genau über die Ereignisse
informiert, wie der deutsche Forscher Wolfgang Gust mit einer gerade
veröffentlichten Dokumentation mit Aufzeichnungen aus den Beständen
des Auswärtigen Amtes belegt. Nachfolgend ein Interview mit dem
früheren »Spiegel«-Journalisten im Wortlaut.

AP: Aus bislang weitgehend unveröffentlichten Dokumenten des
deutschen Auswärtigen Amtes ergibt sich ein bislang so wohl nicht
bestehendes detailliertes Bild einer deutschen Rolle. Wie sind Sie
auf dieses Archiv gestoßen?

Gust: Den Wissenschaftlern steht das Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts seit
längerem zur Verfügung, seit einigen Jahren sind auch die
Personalakten freigegeben worden. Darüber hinaus haben die Alliierten
nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg einen großen Teil der Bestände
fotografiert, womit die Akten auch in Washington und London
einzusehen sind. Das Problem war weniger der Zugang, als die
Entzifferung der Archive. Vor allem die Archive der damaligen
deutschen Botschaft in Konstantinopel, wie Istanbul im Ersten
Weltkrieg noch offiziell hieß, sind zumeist handschriftlich – und das
in der alten deutschen »Sütherlin« genannten gotischen Schrift. Diese
Schriftstücke zu lesen war bislang kein Ausländer in der Lage. Und
die deutschen Historiker interessieren sich bis heute kaum für die
Akten zum Völkermord an den Armeniern. Ein weiteres Problem bestand
darin, dass viele Dokumente nur mit Paraphen abgezeichnet worden
sind. Es war also notwendig, die dahinter stehenden Personen zu
identifizieren.

AP: Wie würden Sie das Verhalten Deutschlands charakterisieren? Gibt
es eine Mitschuld?

Es gab zwei große Gruppen Deutscher im Osmanischen Reich, die mit dem
Völkermord direkt zu tun hatten. Das waren einmal die Militärs und
zum anderen die Diplomaten. Über die Militärs haben einige
Wissenschaftler geforscht, besonders der Schweizer Historiker
Christoph Dinkel, nach dessen Arbeit sehr wohl von einer Mitschuld
die Rede sein kann. In den diplomatischen Akten gibt es einen
Deportationsbefehl, den der im türkischen Großen Hauptquartier für
das Eisenbahnwesen zuständige deutsche Offizier Böttrich
unterzeichnete. Es ist der einzige Befehl dieser Art überhaupt, der
überliefert worden ist. Ihn trifft wegen des tödlichen Schicksals
vieler armenischer Angestellter der Bagdadbahn zweifellos eine
direkte Schuld.

Bei den Diplomaten, mit denen ich mich ausschließlich
auseinandergesetzt habe, muss schon differenziert werden. Die
deutschen Konsuln vor Ort haben ihre Vorgesetzten hervorragend
informiert und sich zum Teil persönlich für die Armenier eingesetzt.
Unter den Botschaftern tat dies nur Paul Graf Wolff-Metternich, bis
er auf Druck deutscher Offiziere in Konstantinopel abgesetzt wurde.
In der Berliner Zentrale des Auswärtigen Amts gab es zwar ab und zu
kritische Worte zum Vorgehen der Türken, aber zu mehr als verbalen
Protesten ist es nicht gekommen. Und diese verbalen Proteste hatten
zumeist den Sinn, die deutsche Position bei den anstehenden
Friedensverhandlungen (gegen Ende des 1. Weltkriegs) zu stärken.

Es gibt aber auch Hinweise, dass die Deutschen dem Deportationsplan
selbst zugestimmt haben. Wolff-Metternich selbst bezeugt dies in
einem Bericht vom 3. April 1916, wo er sagt, die türkische Regierung
vertrete den Standpunkt, »dass die Umsiedelungsmaßnahme nicht nur, –
wie wir zugegeben haben -, in den Ostprovinzen, sondern im ganzen
Reichsgebiet durch militärische Gründe gerechtfertigt war.« Also
hatten die Deutschen den Deportationen im Osten zugestimmt, und im
Osten der Türkei war das eigentliche Siedlungsgebiet der Armenier.

AP: Viele Berichte der Diplomaten und anderer Augenzeugen sind in
einer meist mitleidlos-sachlichen und unheimlich direkten, nicht
verklausulierten Sprache verfasst, in der von Ausrottung, Vernichtung
und Konzentrationslagern die Rede ist. Kann an dem Wahrheitsgehalt
der Angaben gezweifelt werden?

Gust: Dafür gibt es eine einfache Erklärung. Die Deutschen waren die
einzigen, die sämtliche Berichte verschlüsseln durften, ein Privileg,
das nicht einmal den ebenfalls verbündeten Österreichern zugestanden
wurde. Während die Amerikaner die Berichte ihrer Konsuln mühsam durch
Mittelmänner nach Konstantinopel weitergeben mussten und diese
Berichte in vielen Fällen Berichte verloren gingen, konnten die
deutschen Diplomaten ungeschminkt und oft nur Stunden nach den
Ereignissen die Tatsachen übermitteln. Hinzu kommt, dass die
Informationen nur für einen kleinen Kreis von Vorgesetzten bestimmt
waren. Propaganda-Gesichtspunkte spielten keine Rolle. Das macht die
deutschen Zeugnisse so wertvoll und deshalb zweifle ich auch nicht an
deren Wahrheitsgehalt.

AP: Welche Auswirkung können diese Dokumente auf die Forschung über
den Völkermord an den Armeniern haben? Gibt es noch wissenschaftliche
Zweifel an der planmäßigen Ausführung? Die Türkei spricht bis heute
offiziell von einzelnen Massakern und Übergriffen…

Gust: Auch die deutsche Reichsregierung sprach seinerzeit von
einzelnen Übergriffen örtlicher Behörden, aber das waren nur
Beschwichtigungen nach Innen, besonders gegenüber den deutschen
Christen. Die Gesamtheit der deutschen Dokumente zeichnet aber ein
sehr genaues Bild von der Planmäßigkeit des Völkermords, wenngleich
die deutschen Diplomaten die genaue zentrale Planung des Völkermords
durch eine spezielle Organisation nicht sogleich erfasst hatten. Wenn
dazu noch die Dokumente anderer Staaten hinzugezogen werden, kann von
wissenschaftlichen Zweifeln an der Faktizität des Völkermords an den
Armeniern nicht mehr die Rede sein.

AP: Von Hitler ist der Satz überliefert: »Wer redet heute noch von
der Vernichtung der Armeniern?« Gibt es eine direkte Verbindung von
der deutschen Beobachtung des Völkermords an den Armeniern zum von
Deutschen begangenen Holocaust?

Gust: Direkte Verbindungen vom Völkermord an den Armeniern zur Shoah
in dem Sinne, dass die Planer und Durchführenden des Holocaust sich
auf den Völkermord an den Armeniern bezogen, kenne ich – vom
Hitler-Zitat abgesehen – nicht. Indirekte Verbindungen sehe ich aber
sehr wohl. Antisemitismus und rassisches Denken war in der Kaiserzeit
schon sehr ausgeprägt, auch unter Diplomaten.

(Die Fragen stellte AP-Korrespondent Uwe Käding)

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