Letter arising from Norman Stone's Times article‏

Message from Christopher Walker

I wonder if it would not be a good idea to send out the email address for letters to The Times,
so that people can send in their own replies to Stone's article.
(the address to sue is letters@thetimes.co.uk or 1 Pennington Stret, London E98 1TA)

The more letters that are sent in, the better.
I very much believe that the article needs more than one response.
If it is not replied to, it will become the official version in the Foreign Office and Downing Street.
Stone is after all an Emeritus Oxford Professor of History.

Best wishes,
Chris

Here are the letters so far on the Times website:

Sir, I find Norman Stone’s apparent view (Opinion, Mar 8), that bad things are best forgotten

in the interest of economics and politics, totally unacceptable, as I am sure do the survivors and

relations of family members who were the victims of the first ethnic cleansing of the 20th century.

Professor Stone is correct to emphasise that our history is tainted by many bad things that

happened at the end of empires. However, I am sure most would agree that the only way forward

for a civilised nation is to accept that it was responsible for bad things (as the Turks undoubtedly

were) rather than ignore or deny them, so that a true reconciliation can happen. This is what

happened with Germany and the Holocaust, white South Africa and apartheid and other appalling

acts by aggressors through the ages.

Michael Marcar
Cranleigh, Surrey

Sir, The UN Genocide Convention (1951) defines genocide as acts “committed with intent to

destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.

The Turkish massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 came into this category. Even the

ambassador from Germany, one of Turkey’s First World War allies, reported to Berlin that the

Ottoman Government was attempting “to exterminate the Armenian race in the Turkish Empire”.

On the eve of the Second World War, Hitler told his troops of his intention to exterminate

European Jewry, asking: “Who speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” His question

is inscribed on a wall of the Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC.

Modern Turkey remains in denial over the scale, even the fact, of the genocide committed under

its Ottoman predecessors. With negotiations towards Turkey’s EU membership grinding on,

recognition now of the reality of the Armenian genocide would signal Turkey’s coming of age

as a European democracy confident enough to come to terms with its past.

David Rudnick
Harrow, Middx

Sir, Norman Stone’s selective view of the Armenian genocide conveniently ignores the part

played by religion. What he and other apologists for Turkey consistently ignore is that Pontic

Greeks and Assyrians were killed in large numbers at the same time. These communities

were never nationalist groupings taking part in an uprising against Ottoman Turkey and were

not, therefore, killed in the fog of war.

Stone’s comments on Cyprus were particularly insensitive because its well-integrated

Armenian community, having fled the Ottoman persecution to British Cyprus, were then forcibly

expelled again from their homes in the north of the island after Turkey’s invasion in 1974.

Like the US Congress, the European Parliament believes that the mass killings in Armenia

constituted genocide, as we now define it. Turkey would be far better off by confronting its past

and making peace with Armenia by reopening its border with its neighbour and re-establishing

diplomatic relations rather than waging a constant campaign of denial.

Dr Charles Tannock, MEP
UK Conservative Foreign Affairs Spokesman

Sir, Turks and Armenians participating in the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission,

which I chaired, requested a legal analysis on “the applicability of the Genocide Convention to

Events during the early Twentieth Century.” The legal analysis employed a far more rigorous

definition than Norman Stone who simply defines genocide as “the sort of thing Hitler did.”

The crime of genocide has four elements — 1, The perpetrator killed one or more persons.

2, Such person or persons belonged to a particular national, racial or religious group.
3, The perpetrator intended to destroy in whole or in part that group, as such, and

4, The conduct took place as part of a manifest pattern of conduct. Since some Ottoman

leaders knew that the deportation of Armenians from eastern Anatolia would result in many

deaths, the legal analysis concluded that the perpetrators possessed the requisite genocidal

intent and thus the events include all the elements of the crime of genocide as defined by the

Genocide Convention.

The legal analysis also concluded that the Genocide Convention contains no provision

mandating its retroactive application. It was, in fact, intended to impose prospective obligations

to its signatories. Therefore, no legal, financial or territorial claims arising out of the events could

successfully be made under the convention.

The outcome was a win-win. It validated the suffering of Armenians as genocide and freed

Turkey from liability. Opponents of genocide recognition may muddy the facts, but they should

not distort the legal definition of genocide embodied in the convention.

David L. Phillips
Director, Programme on Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding