Armenian Genocide Update

BBC NEWS
Prison for Turkey book 'insult'

A Turkish publisher has been sentenced to five months in prison for
publishing a book by a British author about the mass killing of
Armenians in 1915. Ragip Zarakolu was found guilty of "insulting the
institutions of the Turkish republic" under Article 301 of Turkey's
penal code.

The controversial law was recently reformed under pressure from the EU
to ensure freedom of speech in Turkey.

This is the first high-profile verdict to be handed down since then.

Mr Zarakolu's sentence seems to confirm campaigners' fears that
changes to the law were merely cosmetic, says the BBC's Sarah
Rainsford in Istanbul.

In April it became a crime to insult the Turkish nation, rather than
Turkishness. But insulting the Turkish nation can still be punished by
up to two years in jail.

Sensitive issue

Mr Zarakolu was brought to trial for publishing a book by British
author George Jerjian on the mass killings of Armenians under the
Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Turkey denies the killings were genocide and the issue remains highly
sensitive.

Passing sentence, the judge told Mr Zarakolu he had insulted the
Turkish republic and its founders. His own defence - that he had the
right to criticise - was rejected.

Mr Zarakolu's case was not referred to the Turkish ministry of
justice, as required under the reforms, and he has said he will appeal
against the verdict, our correspondent reports.

His sentence will not be imposed until that appeal process is
complete.

Outside the court, Mr Zarakolu said that such rulings had silenced
many writers in Turkey but that he would continue to challenge the
restrictions.

"I was partly waiting for this result. But it is a struggle for the
truth and it will go on. I do not accept myself as convicted. This is
a conviction for official history and for denialism," he said.

The justice ministry recently revealed that 1,700 people were tried
under Article 301 in 2006 alone.

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Turkish Ambassador Fires Scholar
For Telling the Truth on Genocide
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

Back in 1985, Prof. Donald Quataert, Associate
Professor of History at the University of Houston, and
68 of his pro-Turkish colleagues signed a joint
statement questioning the veracity of the Armenian
Genocide and asking the U.S. Congress not to approve a
commemorative resolution on this crime against
humanity. That denialist statement, paid for by the
Assembly of Turkish American Associations, was
published as a half-page ad in the May 19, 1985
editions of the Washington Post and the New York
Times.

Incidentally, Prof. Quataert, along with scores of
other scholars, had received funding from the
Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS) and other Turkish
sources. The ITS was founded in 1982 by the Turkish
government in Washington, D.C., with a $3 million
grant.

When I pointed out in my Oct. 24, 1985 column that
many of the signatories of that Turkish ad had
received funds from ITS, Heath Lowry, then Executive
Director of ITS, threatened to file a libel lawsuit
against me, unless I retracted my column and published
his lengthy letter of complaint. I rejected his
request and my lawyer threatened to counter-sue the
ITS, prompting Lowry to drop his lawsuit. I had been
told that Lowry had a direct hand in drafting the 1985
denialist statement as well as collecting the
signatures of the 69 scholars. Twelve of those 69
scholars currently serve on the ITS board, including
Lowry and Justin McCarthy, another notorious
denialist.

Last week, an unexpected revelation was made
concerning Prof. Quataert who had served as Chairman
of the ITS Board of Governors from 2001 until the end
of 2006. Prof. Mervat Hatem, President of the Middle
East Studies Association, sent a letter to Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, expressing her
outrage at the dismissal of Dr. Quataert from the ITS
Chairmanship.

The MESA letter revealed that Prof. Quataert was
forced to resign “after he refused to accede to the
request of ITS’s honorary chairman, [Turkey’s]
Ambassador [in Washington] Nebi Sensoy, that he issue
a retraction of a scholarly book review he wrote”
about the Armenian Genocide. The letter also indicated
that “unnamed high officials in Ankara” had
“threatened to revoke the funding of ITS if he
[Quataert] did not publicly retract statements made in
his review or separate himself from the Chairmanship
of the ITS.”

Prof. Hatem expressed her serious concern that “the
reputation and integrity of the ITS, as a
non-political institution funding scholarly projects
that meet stringent academic criteria, is blackened
when there is government interference in and blatant
disregard for the principle of academic freedom.” She
reminded Prime Minister Erdogan that the dismissal of
“Dr. Quataert sharply contrasts with your government’s
recent call to leave the debate regarding the events
of 1915 to the independent study and judgment of
scholars.” Prof. Hatem concluded her letter by asking
the Turkish authorities to reinstate Prof. Quataert as
chairman and place ITS funds in “an irrevocable trust
immune from political interference and infringement of
academic freedom.” Copies of the MESA letter were sent
to Amb. Sensoy, the ITS Board and the President of
Georgetown University where the Turkish Institute is
housed.

Prof. Quataert’s difficulties started when in Fall
2006 the Journal of Interdisciplinary History
published his review of Donald Bloxham’s book, “The
Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and
the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians.” In that
review, Prof. Quataert boldly criticized Turkish
scholars’ work on the Armenian Genocide by stating
that “they were not writing critical history but
polemics…. Many of their works were directly sponsored
and published by the Turkish government….”

Dr. Quataert noted that the “wall of silence” of
Turkish scholars on the Armenian Genocide was
“crumbling.” Despite his earlier objection to the word
genocide, he explained why he had decided to use that
term for the first time in his book review. While
acknowledging that his reference to the Armenian
Genocide “may provoke anger among some of my
Ottomanist colleagues,” he said that not doing so
“runs the risk of suggesting denial of the massive and
systematic atrocities that the Ottoman state and some
of its military and general populace committed against
the Armenians.” Prof. Quataert further observed:
“Indeed, …accumulating evidence is indicating that the
killings were centrally planned by Ottoman government
officials and systematically carried out by their
underlings.” He concluded the book review by admitting
that “what happened to the Armenians readily satisfies
the U.N. definition of genocide.”

Prof. Fatma Muge Gocek, an Associate Member of ITS,
told the Armenian Reporter last week that after Prof.
Quataert’s dismissal two ITS board members had
resigned and two more, in addition to herself, were
considering doing so. A knowledgeable source disclosed
to this writer that the two ITS board members who have
resigned are: Prof. Resat Kasaba, Chair of the
International Studies Program at the University of
Washington-Seattle and Marcie Patton, Associate
Professor of Political Science at Fairfield
University.

Dr. Gocek, Associate Professor of Sociology at the
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, sent a letter to the
ITS last week, expressing her surprise that she was
still on its Board. She said that no one from ITS had
contacted her in more than five years. She described
Prof. Quataert’s dismissal “as an infringement on his
academic freedom” and the Turkish government’s funding
of ITS “with strings attached” as “unethical.”

Prof. Quataert’s transformation from a denialist to a
believer in the Armenian Genocide is based on the
growing body of scholarship in recent years both
within and outside Turkey. A comparison of the 2000
and 2005 editions of his book, “The Ottoman Empire,
1700-1922,” illustrates the gradual evolution of his
position on the Armenian Genocide. In a sharp
departure from the cautious language used in his first
edition, Dr. Quataert in the 2005 edition of his book
points out the organized nature of the killings: “The
patterns of killings were chillingly similar in the
various areas, powerfully suggesting the presence of a
coordinated program.” He further states: “On the
evidence presented, it seems plausible that
high-ranking officials of the Ottoman state, utilizing
the Special Organization, directed a concerted,
centrally orchestrated program that murdered massive
numbers of Ottoman Armenians.” Finally, Dr. Quataert
comes to the conclusion in his 2006 book review that
what had happened to the Armenians in 1915 was indeed
a Genocide.

The Turkish government now has a new scandal on its
hands, thanks to the reckless behavior of its
Ambassador in Washington, who clearly violated the
academic freedom of a prominent American scholar. The
Ambassador’s actions should embarrass the Turkish
government in front of not only the public at large
but also the academic community worldwide. This
scandal may also cause the Internal Revenue Service to
look into possible violations of U.S. laws by ITS in
view of the improper control of an American non-profit
organization by a foreign government. Georgetown
University officials may also review their association
with ITS, given the latter’s blatant violation of
academic freedom.

Once again, the Turkish government has been caught
trying to export its gag rule on the Armenian Genocide
beyond its borders to Washington, D.C. Indeed, as the
MESA President pointed out in her letter, Prof.
Quataert’s dismissal exposes the Turkish government’s
lack of sincerity in suggesting that scholars rather
than politicians should deal with the Armenian
Genocide issue.

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State Department's Arrogant Behavior
May Doom Second Nominee for Armenia
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, California Courier

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for
the next U.S. Ambassador to Armenia on June 19. The nominee is Marie L.
Yovanovitch, a career diplomat, until recently U.S. Ambassador to the Kyrgyz
Republic.

Last March, when I first disclosed Pres. Bush's plans to submit Amb.
Yovanovitch's name to the Senate as his nominee for Armenia, I suggested that the
State Department consult the leadership of the Armenian-American community in
order to resolve in advance any possible complications in the upcoming Senate
confirmation hearing. Regrettably, this constructive suggestion was ignored by
those who are referred to as "Baby DASes" (Deputy Assistant Secretary) by their
more experienced senior colleagues at the State Department.

The series of errors committed by the "Baby DASes" on this subject began when
the Bush administration, at the urging of Turkey, decided to recall John
Evans, the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, for having uttered the words Armenian
Genocide during his 2005 tour of Armenian communities in California. Undermining
their own credibility, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza and
Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried repeatedly denied reports by this
columnist that Amb. Evans' diplomatic career was about to be terminated.
After Amb. Evans was actually recalled, the State Department refused to
provide any explanation either to Members of Congress or the Armenian-American
community. Months later, when Pres. Bush nominated Amb. Richard Hoagland as the
next envoy to Armenia, Sen. Robert Menendez (D.N.J.) placed a hold on his
confirmation after the nominee questioned the validity of the Armenian Genocide
during the Senate hearing. From the Armenian perspective, the hold also sent a
clear message to the Bush administration that the Armenian-American community was
profoundly angry and resentful of the White House actions on the genocide
issue.

I suggested back then that the State Department meet with the leadership of
major Armenian-American organizations to discuss the Evans/Hoagland
controversy. Instead of engaging in constructive dialogue, the Bush administration
continued its reckless path and nominated Amb. Hoagland for a second time. It was
therefore not surprising that Sen. Menendez placed a second hold, which further
humiliated the President and the State Department. Only then did the Bush
administration realize the futility of its efforts and withdrew Amb. Hoagland's
nomination for good.

This ridiculous scenario may well be repeated on June 19 in the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. The State Department's "Baby DASes" have once again
ignored the suggestion I made last March. Instead of meeting with leaders of the
major Armenian-American organizations, as done in the past, they have gone
through the motion of selectively meeting with two or three groups in recent
days. These meetings were reportedly unproductive due to the limited number of
participants and lack of a sincere desire by the State Department to discuss and
resolve the issues at hand.

Another possible complicating factor is Sen. Menendez's recent announcement
that he intends to question the new nominee very carefully and would not
hesitate to place a hold on Amb. Yovanovitch's nomination if she does not
satisfactorily answer his questions on the Armenian Genocide. It is not known if the
State Department has received any assurances from Sen. Menendez in this regard.
It is understandable that the Armenian government would like to have the
United States represented in Armenia by someone with ambassadorial rank. So does
the Armenian-American community. However, it is in the interest of both Yerevan
and Washington that the person representing the United States in Armenia can
effectively carry out her diplomatic duties. Not allowing her to speak
truthfully about the Armenian Genocide, while working in the midst of three million
Armenians, will make her job very difficult, if not impossible!

It would be regrettable, but understandable, if a Senator placed a hold on
Amb. Yovanovitch's confirmation, should she provide less than truthful answers
to Senators' questions on the Armenian Genocide. The U.S. record on this issue
is very clear, particularly in the light of the recent revelation of a U.S.
government document submitted to the World Court in 1951 acknowledging the
Armenian Genocide. This acknowledgment was reiterated by Pres. Reagan in his 1981
Presidential Proclamation, as Pres. Bush did during his 2000 presidential
campaign. Therefore, should Amb. Yovanovitch use the term Armenian Genocide during
the upcoming Senate hearing, she would be the one telling the truth, not the
"Baby DASes" who are trying to muzzle her.

Finally, while it is desirable and even important for Armenia to have a U.S.
Ambassador in Yerevan, it is even more important that the U.S. government
treats its Armenian-American citizens with dignity and respect and holds an open
dialogue with them on critical issues. Allowing Washington to trample on the
rights of the Armenian-American community and dismiss its concerns would not be
in the interest of the United States, Armenian-Americans and the Republic of
Armenia.

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