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OPEN FORUM: THE RIGHT TIME TO CONDEMN GENOCIDE
By Roxanne Makasdjian
San Francisco Chronicle
March 30 2010
A recent vote in a congressional committee to simply reaffirm America's
stand against genocide became, instead, a legislative referendum on
a broader fundamental question: Who decides when the United States
speaks about genocide?
Earlier this month, the House Foreign Affairs Committee considered
a resolution calling on the president to properly characterize the
Ottoman Turkish government's centrally planned and systematically
executed campaign of race extermination against the Armenian
people from 1915-1923 as "genocide" and to ensure that U.S. foreign
policymakers put the lessons of this crime to work in preventing
future atrocities.
The decision should have been easy enough. The International
Association of Genocide Scholars, the pre-eminent group of independent
scholars who have studied the matter, is on record in support of
congressional affirmation. Our own U.S. archives are replete with
eyewitness testimonies by U.S Foreign Service officers stationed
in the Ottoman Empire at the time. U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau
referred to the mass murder of 1.5 million Armenians as a "campaign
of race extermination."
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed similar legislation
honoring the victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide in 1975
and 1984, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed similar
measures in 2000, 2005 and 2007. Yet despite these resolutions,
today's committee spent almost six hours debating the measure, and
approved it by only one vote.
So what was it that forced the vote to be so close? What prompted the
Obama administration's last-minute opposition, even though as senators
and candidates, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Rodham Clinton
had all -- repeatedly -- called for Armenian Genocide recognition?
The answer is both sad and clear: foreign intervention in the U.S.
political process in the form of outright bullying by the Turkish
government. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and their multimillion-dollar Washington,
D.C., lobbyists, including former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and
former Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, led a full-blown offensive
against the measure. Along the way, Ankara, using its purchasing
power, blackmailed a number of profit-hungry but ethically challenged
corporate and defense firms into supporting its shameful campaign to
cover up the Armenian Genocide.
In the wake of the U.S. House panel's vote, Turkey withdrew its
ambassador and threw what amounts to a diplomatic temper tantrum - very
loud, but not very lasting. They did so again, less than a week later,
when Sweden's Parliament voted to recognize the Armenian Genocide. In
fact, Prime Minister Erdogan went so far as to threaten the impending
deportation of some 100,000 Armenians currently in Turkey -- a chilling
reminder of their Ottoman forefathers' genocidal campaign.
Thankfully, Chairman Howard Berman and the House Foreign Affairs
Committee he leads refused to give in to Turkey's threats, joining
more than 20 other countries, including 11 of Turkey's NATO allies,
which have recognized the Armenian Genocide.
The supporters of the Armenian Genocide resolution understand that
bowing to Ankara's threats today only helps perpetuate the denial
and the diplomatic bullying, and opens the door to similar pressures
tomorrow to deny other genocides.
Here in San Francisco, we know the answer. Each year, our Board of
Supervisors and I pass a resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide
and calling on Congress to end U.S. complicity in Turkey's genocide
denial. It's time for Congress -- led by our own Speaker of the
House Nancy Pelosi -- to finally stand up to Ankara's bullying and
do the same.
Roxanne Makasdjian is the chairwoman of the Armenian National Committee
of the San Francisco Bay Area.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/opinion shop/detail?&entry_id=60255
By Roxanne Makasdjian
San Francisco Chronicle
March 30 2010
A recent vote in a congressional committee to simply reaffirm America's
stand against genocide became, instead, a legislative referendum on
a broader fundamental question: Who decides when the United States
speaks about genocide?
Earlier this month, the House Foreign Affairs Committee considered
a resolution calling on the president to properly characterize the
Ottoman Turkish government's centrally planned and systematically
executed campaign of race extermination against the Armenian
people from 1915-1923 as "genocide" and to ensure that U.S. foreign
policymakers put the lessons of this crime to work in preventing
future atrocities.
The decision should have been easy enough. The International
Association of Genocide Scholars, the pre-eminent group of independent
scholars who have studied the matter, is on record in support of
congressional affirmation. Our own U.S. archives are replete with
eyewitness testimonies by U.S Foreign Service officers stationed
in the Ottoman Empire at the time. U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau
referred to the mass murder of 1.5 million Armenians as a "campaign
of race extermination."
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed similar legislation
honoring the victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide in 1975
and 1984, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed similar
measures in 2000, 2005 and 2007. Yet despite these resolutions,
today's committee spent almost six hours debating the measure, and
approved it by only one vote.
So what was it that forced the vote to be so close? What prompted the
Obama administration's last-minute opposition, even though as senators
and candidates, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Rodham Clinton
had all -- repeatedly -- called for Armenian Genocide recognition?
The answer is both sad and clear: foreign intervention in the U.S.
political process in the form of outright bullying by the Turkish
government. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and their multimillion-dollar Washington,
D.C., lobbyists, including former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and
former Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, led a full-blown offensive
against the measure. Along the way, Ankara, using its purchasing
power, blackmailed a number of profit-hungry but ethically challenged
corporate and defense firms into supporting its shameful campaign to
cover up the Armenian Genocide.
In the wake of the U.S. House panel's vote, Turkey withdrew its
ambassador and threw what amounts to a diplomatic temper tantrum - very
loud, but not very lasting. They did so again, less than a week later,
when Sweden's Parliament voted to recognize the Armenian Genocide. In
fact, Prime Minister Erdogan went so far as to threaten the impending
deportation of some 100,000 Armenians currently in Turkey -- a chilling
reminder of their Ottoman forefathers' genocidal campaign.
Thankfully, Chairman Howard Berman and the House Foreign Affairs
Committee he leads refused to give in to Turkey's threats, joining
more than 20 other countries, including 11 of Turkey's NATO allies,
which have recognized the Armenian Genocide.
The supporters of the Armenian Genocide resolution understand that
bowing to Ankara's threats today only helps perpetuate the denial
and the diplomatic bullying, and opens the door to similar pressures
tomorrow to deny other genocides.
Here in San Francisco, we know the answer. Each year, our Board of
Supervisors and I pass a resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide
and calling on Congress to end U.S. complicity in Turkey's genocide
denial. It's time for Congress -- led by our own Speaker of the
House Nancy Pelosi -- to finally stand up to Ankara's bullying and
do the same.
Roxanne Makasdjian is the chairwoman of the Armenian National Committee
of the San Francisco Bay Area.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/opinion shop/detail?&entry_id=60255