Armenian Genocide News
U.S. Recognized Armenian Genocide
In 1951, World Court Document Reveals
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
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."
Of course, should an elected official issue a statement reaffirming the facts of the Armenian
Genocide, such an acknowledgment would be most welcome by Armenians worldwide. On the other hand, should a
public official either deny or refuse to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, Armenian-Americans would have
good reason not to support his or her election.
Regardless of whether one agrees with Pres. Reagan’s politics, most people acknowledge that he was a man of
principle. His successors – Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – failed to
display such moral leadership. During their presidential campaigns, they misled voters by pledging
to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, and broke their promises after the election. These three recent U.S.
presidents went far beyond not keeping their word; they did everything in their power to prevent the
adoption of congressional resolutions on the Armenian Genocide. The names of these infamous denialists
should be etched in perpetuity on a special "Wall of Shame," so future generations will not forget their
reprehensible behavior.
On the basis of the official statement submitted by the Government of the United States to the World Court
in 1951, combined with the two House resolutions adopted in 1975 and 1984, Pres. Reagan’s 1981
Proclamation, and resolutions adopted by more than forty U.S. states and hundreds of U.S. cities,
Armenians should now classify the United States among the more than 20 countries that have officially
recognized the Armenian Genocide.
All those who claim that the United States has not recognized the Armenian Genocide are misrepresenting
the U.S. government’s clear record on this issue.
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CBS 47
June 3 2008
CA
MONTGOMERY, Ala., June 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A network
of U.S. scholars funded by the government of Turkey is part of an
energetic campaign to cover up the Turkish genocide of as many as 1.5
million Armenians during World War I, an effort that has found success
in Congress and the White House, according to the latest issue of
the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, released today.
Despite abundant documentation and eyewitness accounts of the slaughter
of Armenians by Turkey's Ottoman government between 1915 and 1918,
the current Turkish government has paid lobbyists and funded the
network of American academics, many of whom dismiss or rationalize
the killing. Genocide scholars agree that the slaughter was, indeed,
a genocide.
"What we are seeing is a despicable rewriting of history aimed
at absolving the perpetrators of mass murder and demonizing their
victims," said Mark Potok, editor of the SPLC's Intelligence Report,
a quarterly investigative journal that monitors the radical right. "It
is no different than the Holocaust denial of Nazi sympathizers who
claim there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and Treblinka."
The summer 2008 issue of the Intelligence Report can be read at
www.splcenter.org.
The cover story recounts a March 2007 event where Guenter Lewy,
a professor emeritus of political science at the University of
Massachusetts, told a Harvard University audience that the Turkish
government at the time may have been guilty of ineptness and "bungling
misrule" -- but not genocide. Lewy, one of the most active members
of the network of academics, has made similar revisionist claims
in speeches at other campuses and in his 2005 book, The Armenian
Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide.
As early as 1985, Turkey bought full-page newspaper advertisements
to publish a letter questioning the genocide that was signed by 69
American scholars. All 69 had received funding that year from the
Turkish government or its proxies.
As the only Muslim-dominated country in a troubled region to call
the United States and Israel its allies, Turkey also has wielded
significant political influence in Washington. Last fall, lobbyists on
the Turkish payroll stymied a congressional resolution commemorating
the genocide by persuading more than 100 lawmakers to reverse their
positions. Even President Bush flip-flopped on a 2000 campaign promise
to back official U.S. recognition of the genocide.
"Denial is the final stage of genocide," Gregory Stanton, president
of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, told the
Intelligence Report. "It is a continuing attempt to destroy the victim
group psychologically and culturally, to deny its members even the
memory of the murders of their relatives. That is what the Turkish
government today is doing to Armenians around the world."
Also, in the Summer 2008 issue of the Intelligence Report:
"Secret Identity?" probes the ideology of Shepherd's Chapel, an
Arkansas-based television ministry led by Arnold Murray that has
an audience in the millions. Despite a theology that identifies an
evil race he calls the "Kenites" as the killers of Christ, Murray
says his ministry is not anti-Semitic. Mounting evidence suggests
otherwise."Stalked by Skins" tells the story of twin brothers who
have lived in fear since a bloody 2003 encounter with a gang of racist
skinheads in Illinois that left one man dead. In interviews, Bill and
Roger Larson recount how they and their families have been tormented
by gang members ever since. "North Meets South" reports on the strange
alliance forged by a Vermont separatist group in recent years. Born
of the left, the Second Vermont Republic has now partnered with the
white supremacist League of the South, which seeks a second Southern
secession, to build a national movement."Of Race and Rockets" reveals
famed aerospace scientist Walter Kistler's $200,000 in donations to
the Pioneer Fund, a racist foundation that funds controversial studies
of race and intelligence. A defiant Kistler says he is "not concerned
about battles in society about what is and what is not 'racist.'"
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit organization that
combats hate, intolerance and discrimination through education,
litigation and advocacy. The Intelligence Report is a quarterly
investigative journal that tracks the activities of hate groups and
monitors militia and other extremist anti-government activity. For
more information, visit www.splcenter.org.
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By David Holthouse
EuropeNews
June 3 2008
Denmark
Early this year, the Toronto District School Board voted to require
all public high school students in Canada's largest city to complete a
new course titled "Genocide: Historical and Contemporary Implications."
It includes a unit on the Armenian genocide, in which more than a
million Armenians perished in a methodical and premeditated scheme
of annihilation orchestrated by the rulers of Turkey during and just
after World War I.
The school board members each soon received a letter from Guenter
Lewy, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of
Massachusetts, rebuking them for classifying the Armenian genocide in
the same category as the Holocaust. "The tragic fate of the Armenian
community during World War I," Lewy wrote, is best understood as "a
badly mismanaged war-time security measure," rather than a carefully
plotted genocide.
Lewy is one of the most active members of a network of American
scholars, influence peddlers and website operators, financed by
hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from the government of
Turkey, who promote the denial of the Armenian genocide -- a network
so influential that it was able last fall to defy both historical
truth and enormous political pressure to convince America's lawmakers
and even its president to reverse long-held policy positions.
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arminfo
2008-06-04 14:10:00
ArmInfo. Resolution on Genocide of Armenians passed by the US
congressional committee will be among key topics to be covered in
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan's talks with top officials
in Washington.
Turkish newspaper Zaman reports that Foreign Minister Ali Babacan
is on a visit to the United States. He is expected to meet with a
number of senior US officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney
and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Besides the painful topic
of Armenian Genocide, the minister intends to discuss the ongoing
cooperation between Ankara and Washington against activities of the
outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.
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PanARMENIAN.Net
04.06.2008 16:17 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey needs a plan B in the likelihood the
U.S. Congress passes a resolution endorsing Armenian Genocide under
a new administration, said campaign advisers for the presidential
candidates of both American political parties.
Richard Burt, campaign advisor to Republican nominee John McCain,
and Philip Gordon, campaign advisor to likely Democratic nominee
Barack Obama, discussed the implications of a Republican or Democratic
victory for Turkish-American relations at a panel organized by the
Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (TUSIAD) and
the Brookings Institute.
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's top presidential
candidate, has pledged to recognize the World War I-era killings of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as Genocide if elected president,
as does his competitor Hillary Clinton.
Though not excluding a possibility of a change of heart, given that
politicians act differently in practice than they claim in their
election campaigns, Gordon advised the Turkish government to have a
plan B on the Genocide Resolution issue. Marc Parris, a former American
ambassador to Ankara, argued that Democrats will become stronger in
Congress and said the Turkish government should be prepared.
Whereas Burt argued that both Democrats and Republicans see Turkey as
a traditional ally, Gordon said the new administration will have to
devise a new policy on Turkey and cannot afford to continue overlooking
Turkey in favor of other priorities, the Turkish Daily News reports.
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New Publication from CAR
Raphael Lemkin was one of the greatest and most influential lawyers and
human rights activists in the last century. Not only did he coin the word
“genocide,” but was also the prime mover for the enactment of the United
Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide
(the “Genocide Convention”), the international law document that in 1948
made genocide an international “crime of crimes.”
Distressed by the cyclical slaughter of Armenians by Turks in 1894, 1909,
and 1915, Lemkin compiled a dossier and searched for legal remedies
to punish perpetrators of mass murder and to deter and prevent future genocides.
“Raphael Lemkin’s Dossier on the Armenian Genocide,” a stunningly graphic
book published by CAR.,the Center for Armenian Remembrance, constitutes
an important contribution for scholars, human rights activists and others seeking
to know what the originator of the term genocide and the “father” of the Genocide
Convention had to say about the Armenian Genocide.
This timely book, which was published through the efforts of Attorney Vartkes
Yeghiayan, is the perfect antidote to the denialist campaign that has lately intensified
by the banning of a book in Toronto and its replacement by books by denialist
historians Bernard Lewis and Guenther Levy.
It is impossible not to be touched by the eyewitness reports that Lemkin has
meticulously compiled in this dossier. The reader will quickly be convinced that
the brutal campaign against the Armenians is the very definition of Genocide.
This book has the power to inflame the reader with indignation, sorrow and righteous
anger.
“Raphael Lemkin’s Dossier on the Armenian Genocide” also contains a lucid f
oreword by eminent professor Michael J. Bazyler, and a meticulous, complete
bibliography on Lemkin by Eddie Yeghiayan.
“Raphael Lemkin’s Dossier on the Armenian Genocide” is the fifth book in the
“The Armenian Genocide and the Armenian Case” series put out by CAR Publishing.
It can be purchased at CAR Publishing P.O.Box 250322 Glendale, Ca 91225 USA,
www.centerar.org , and Armenian bookstores.
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