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Turkey Attempted To Stifle Genocide Recognition By South Australia

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  • Turkey Attempted To Stifle Genocide Recognition By South Australia

    TURKEY ATTEMPTED TO STIFLE GENOCIDE RECOGNITION BY SOUTH AUSTRALIA

    www.asbarez.com/index.html?showarticle= 41414_4/13/2009_1
    Monday, April 13, 2009

    ADELAIDE, Australia--Turkey's Ambassador to Australia has attempted
    to prevent Australian lawmakers from recognizing as genocide the
    organized annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians and 350,000 Greeks
    during World War I, the Weekend Australian revealed on Saturday.

    The newspaper on Saturday reported of the attempts made by the Turkish
    Ambassador, Murat Ersavci, to block the government of South Australia
    from passing a motion recognizing the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek
    Genocides.

    The measure also acknowledged the role of the Armenian Relief Fund
    of Australia, which provided immediate humanitarian relief to the
    victims and survivors of the genocide.

    On March 25th, South Australia became the second Australian state
    (after New South Wales in 1997) to recognize the Armenian Genocide
    when its Parliament's Legislative Council passed a motion recognizing
    the Armenian Genocide as "one of the greatest crimes against humanity".

    The report revealed that upon Ersavci's request, the Australian
    Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Stephen Smith, "had written to
    South Australian Premier Mike Rann outlining the federal Government's
    position 'on these historical events' in Turkey at the time the
    remnants of the once mighty Ottoman Empire gave way to the new
    republic".

    "It is completely undemocratic that the ambassador of a foreign nation
    forces our Foreign Affairs Minister to lobby the Premier of South
    Australia," commented Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC
    Australia) President, Varant Meguerditchian. "Mr. Ersavci's actions
    are a direct attempt to gag our politicians from speaking truthfully
    about our proud history."

    ANC Australia has called upon the Australian Government to review
    its official position, in light of eyewitness testimony from ANZAC
    soldiers held captive in Turkey during WWI, and the overwhelming body
    of evidence which demonstrates Australia's involvement in providing
    aid to the orphaned survivors of the Armenian Genocide,

    "Australia can no longer avoid or stay silent on this issue when
    it is so closely intertwined with Australia's proud history,"
    Meguerditchian said.

    "We call on the Federal Government of Australia to remain resilient
    in the face of foreign pressure and independently acknowledge the
    common history of the Armenian and Australian nations," he said.

    During the last days of the Ottoman Empire, the Government implemented
    a policy of Genocide upon its Christian Armenian population. As a
    result, up to 1.5million Armenian men, women and children lost their
    lives between 1915 and 1922.

    Adding weight to the importance of recognizing the Armenian Genocide is
    the research conducted by the Australian Institute for Holocaust and
    Genocide Studies that discovered records of Australia's humanitarian
    assistance to Armenians following the genocide and testimonies by
    ANZAC soldiers to atrocities against the Armenians as they occurred.
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