Armenian Genocide News from USA, Israel & UK
Bush Commemorates Armenian `Tragedy'
By Emil Danielyan
U.S. President George W. Bush again declined to describe the mass
killings and deportations of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide on
Friday as he commemorated the 93rd anniversary of `one of the greatest
tragedies of the 20th century.'
`As we reflect on this epic human tragedy, we must resolve to redouble
our efforts to promote peace, tolerance, and respect for the dignity of
human life,' Bush said in his annual address to the Armenian community
in the United States. `The Armenian people's unalterable determination
to triumph over tragedy and flourish is a testament to their strength of
character and spirit.'
`We welcome the efforts by individuals in Armenia and Turkey to foster
reconciliation and peace, and support joint efforts for an open
examination of the past in search of a shared understanding of these
tragic events,' he added.
The two main Armenian-American advocacy groups were quick to express
their disappointment with Bush's continuing refusal to call the
slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman
Empire a genocide. They both recalled his 2000 pledge to recognize the
genocide if elected president.
Bush has avoided using the politically sensitive term throughout his
presidency, anxious not to antagonize Turkey, a key U.S. ally which
vehemently denies that the 1915-1918 massacres constituted a genocide.
He has also strongly opposed the passage of Armenian genocide
resolutions by the U.S. Congress.
`This April 24, President Bush's last in office, he completed his
eight-year long betrayal of his campaign commitment to properly
recognize the Armenian Genocide," Aram Hamparian, executive director of
the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) said in a statement.
"The President not only failed to honor his promise to recognize the
Armenian Genocide, but used the full force of his White House to block
Congress from taking the very step he himself had pledged to undertake
as a candidate for office.'
`In his final April 24 statement, President Bush missed the mark, which
may account for the ongoing nature and escalation of threats of genocide
around the world,' read a separate statement by the Armenian Assembly of
America (AAA).
The AAA also criticized Bush for failing to mention an independent study
on the issue initiated in 2002 by a group of prominent Armenians and
Turks acting under the aegis of a U.S.-backed `reconciliation
commission.' In a report released in February 2003, the New York-based
International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) concluded that the
mass killings and deportations of Armenians `include all of the elements
of the crime of genocide' as defined by a 1948 UN convention.
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Bush mentioned and praised the ICTJ study in his past April 24
statements. The AAA considers this an `indirect acknowledgement' of the
genocide by the U.S. president.
David Smith, The Jersualem Post
In late August 1939, the day before his invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler gathered
He assured his commanders the world would not long condemn them, justifying
Tel Aviv University professor Israel Charny, chief editor of the Encyclopedia of Genocide, insists the statement was recorded by "an indisputably serious" Associated Press correspondent, and that other remarks were made by Hitler that "confirm that the Armenian genocide was an active guiding concept in the monster's mind."
Kevork Kahvedjian, son of Jerusalem photographer and Armenian genocide survivor Elia Kahvedjian, explains his father was personal testimony to the genocide and its savagery.
He remembered the sound of the German cannons pounding the city, then a lull of about a month before the Turkish soldiers entered his home and took Elia, his mother, a sister and two brothers - one brother was just a few months old. Two older brothers had already been hanged.
"Soldiers came and started pushing my mother. She tried to go back to the house but the soldiers hit her with rifle butts and she had to take the children and start walking." The Armenians were allowed only what they could carry. They walked for weeks through the desert of Deir Zor with soldiers on both sides. The soldiers offered neither food nor water, but the prisoners ate some plants and drank brackish water on the way.
After weeks of carrying her six-month-old baby, Elia's mother, exhausted, set the infant in the shade of a tree and abandoned him, hoping some kind person would find him. The older sister, about12 years old during the march, was abducted. Elia found her 18 years later and discovered she had been forced to serve in a harem.
In a wadi, near the end of the trek, "I heard my mother say, 'Today, I think they're going to kill us.' " It happened that that a Kurd was passing by. She called the Kurd and told him, "Take this boy and go."
Elia was transferred to Lebanon, then to Nazareth in 1920. There, one of the teachers was a photographer and Elia worked for him. Elia learned the photography trade and became a prominent photographer.
Turkish authorities strive to discredit accounts such as Elia's, although his testimony is confirmed by an abundance of contemporary journalism, eyewitness accounts by statesmen such as American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau, as well as German and Austrian documentation.
Charny claims there was "most certainly" a religious element in the persecution of the Armenians, the first empire to embrace the faith. (Armenia officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in 301 CE, about 25 years before the Roman Empire did so.) "There are even some who want to refer to this period overall as 'The Christian Genocide,' because the victims of the Turks' genocide were not only Armenians but also Assyrians and Greeks," he explains. Still, he is reticent to use that term as it "could seem to remove from the Armenian community their hard-won gains for recognition of the genocide of their people."
According to Charney, "What stands out about the denials of the Armenian genocide is that for many years, the full power of the Turkish government has been devoted to denials of the genocide. Turkey literally spends millions on advertising agencies and on publicity efforts. It also throws the considerable weight of its government behind coercing denials from other countries, with threats to the United States of not allowing American military planes to use Turkish air space or threatening to pull out of joint NATO military exercises, as well as with threats of major economic retaliation should or when a country, such as France, confirms recognition of the Armenian genocide.
"Israel is regularly the object of threats by the Turks and, regrettably to say the least, for many years has kowtowed to these threats. But then too so has the stronger United States"
MK Haim Oron (Meretz) proposed in March that the Knesset appoint a committee to consider recognizing the Armenian genocide, adding, "It is unacceptable that the Jewish people is not making itself heard." Although the measure passed, MK Shalom Simhon (Likud) responded, "this has become a politically charged issue between Armenians and Turks, and Israel is not interested in taking sides."
Many Israelis are eager for their country to recognize the genocide. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem will hold an event titled "A Symposium in Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide" at its Givat Ram campus on April 29 at 6:30 p.m. Both Kevork Kahvedjian and Charney will speak.
Israel will eventually recognize the genocide, insists Kevork, who manages his father's business, Elia Photo Service, in Jerusalem's Old City. Kevork, named for the baby left under a tree in the desert, believes, "One day they are going to say, 'Yes, it happened.' If not now, then in 50 years!"
Otherwise, Armenians worry, states that refuse to recognize the genocide risk rendering Hitler's rhetorical question a reality.
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