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  • Time To Move Forward

    TIME TO MOVE FORWARD
    By Katia M. Peltekian

    5th Dec 06
    Aztag/Leb

    The time has come for Armenians around the world to move forward. In
    the past couple of decades, we have witnessed a surge of research by
    independent scholars who have confirmed that what the Armenians were
    subjected to - massacres and forced deportations into the desert -
    was in fact Genocide. This has of course led to the recognition of
    the Armenian Genocide by some governments and parliaments around the
    world. Yet, we Armenians await the day when the Turkish government
    would admit the crimes their ancestors committed.

    Armenians are now stuck in a futile argument with the Turks, especially
    with the successive Turkish government. For the time being, the debate
    is going nowhere. Armenians confirm it was Genocide, Turks claim it
    was not Genocide.

    The argument now sounds like the following: "Yes, it was Genocide and
    it has been proven by many scholars and researchers." "No it wasn't
    Genocide and our scholars and researchers can prove that." "Yes,
    it was." "No, it wasn't." " Yes." "No."

    And it seems Hye Tad is caught in this circular argument, at least
    for the time being.

    But what else can we do? Isn't Genocide recognition what we want? At
    the same time, does Hye Tad have any plans for the "day after"? What
    will we do when Turkey finally utters the word we've been waiting
    for all our lives? The next logical step is of course demanding our
    lands back, and then we will start a new argument that could go on for
    ages. "Give us back our lands." "No, they are not your lands." "Yes,
    they are." "No, they aren't."

    So it is time that we start focusing on the land issue and open a
    new front to get what is rightfully ours. I am aware that most of us
    could become skeptic and doubt whether we will ever achieve that:
    after all, we've been unable to get the Turks to say one word; how
    will we ever get them to give our lands back?

    Perhaps the following news item that appeared in the Turkish newspaper
    Radikal on November 7, 2006 could help us envisage our next struggle.

    According to Radikal, more than a year ago (17 August, 2005), in
    Turkey, Mr. Nihat Shahin, the Assistant Director of The Land Registry
    Office sent a letter to the Turkish National Security Counsel. In
    this letter, he asked for advice regarding the question of all
    property-registration books, whether or not these documents should
    be sent to the administration of the State Archives.

    At the time, there was an ongoing program to update and digitalize
    the old registry of real property.

    Radikal continues saying: The Brigadier General of the National
    Security Counsel, Mr. Tayyar Elmas, also the chief of the Department of
    Mobilisation and War Planning, replied to this with a letter in which
    he said: "The contents of the above-mentioned registry books dated
    from the Ottoman era are liable to ethnic and political manipulations
    (like the unfounded genocide, the Ottoman Foundation, property claims,
    etc.). For the sake of national interests, it is undesirable that
    those documents, partially or completely, be multiplied, or delivered
    to centers where archival work and research are done. Hence, it is
    more desirable that those books stay in the Land Registry Offices
    with limited access".

    Although the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has been claiming that
    the Turkish archives are open, here comes a piece of news from Turkey
    itself that some of their archival material is kept out of the reach
    of researchers. True, the Turkish archives have been open, but what
    those archives contain is questionable. The Turks themselves have
    admitted that only about 10-12% of the archival documents are open
    to the public.

    The Radikal journalist Murat Belge warns Erdogan that before he even
    challenges Armenia and the world to open their archives, he should know
    exactly what Turkey's archives contain. The journalist further writes:
    "Everybody knows that in the state archives mentioned by Mr. Erdogan
    the possibility to discover something new is very small. There is no
    smoking gun since there have been no official written orders. Nobody
    does this. No one has discovered any written order by Hitler to
    exterminate the Jews either. But undoubtedly, it is impossible in a
    state mechanism that a deed in this magnitude has not been registered
    somewhere in the archives."

    The Land Registry Office in Turkey is concealing a crucial part of our
    history. These documents give the details and the boundaries of the
    lands, the names of the owners, who sold and who bought them. Research
    through these documents will prove once and for all who the owners
    at the time were and when and in what kind of circumstances changes
    in ownership occurred.

    To my knowledge, none of the branches of Hye Tad or any other
    organization that primarily deals with the Armenian Question has
    caught up on this news which apparently surfaced more than a year
    ago, perhaps because they lack the human resources who can read and
    understand the Turkish language. This needs to be amended as soon as
    possible. We need more experts who can read and understand Ottoman
    Turkish, who can actually be able to detect any discrepancies in
    whatever archival material that is open to the public.

    Regardless, the above piece of news should open another door for us.

    Armenians have had the chance to sue American and French insurance
    companies regarding the life insurances that their grandparents had
    acquired more than 90 years ago, and many families have received the
    money. But in my view, getting our lands back is much more important
    than getting money.

    It is time to move forward and get concrete results. We must take
    the Turkish government to court and demand our lands back, one small
    piece at a time.

    The land registration books should contain all the necessary
    registrations and any sales that could have taken place. Our
    grandparents did not sell their lands before they were killed or
    deported. In fact, many of us still keep this sort of documents that
    our grandparents carried with them as they were deported. They lived
    and died with the hope that one day they would return.

    To get what is rightfully our property is not connected to whether
    Turkey admits the Genocide or not. The heirs to those lands are alive
    and they are now the rightful owners of those lands. We need to move
    fast before these land registration documents also vanish in thin air.
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