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ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIED AND REMEMBERED
Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/article/armenian-genocide-denied-and-remembered
April 25 2012
John M. Curtis
LA City Buzz Examiner
Forced to deal with one of the great crimes of the 20th Century,
Armenian Remembrance Day commemorates the systematic extermination
of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Young Turks regime during
and after WWW I [1915-1923]. Calling the event "one of the worst
atrocities of the 20th Century," President Barack Obama stopped short
of labeling the massacre a "genocide," something vehemently rejected
by the current Turkish government. Events surrounding the Armenian
genocide have been well documented, beginning April 24, 1915 when
the Young Turk military rounded up some 250 Armenian intellectuals
and community leaders in Constantinople suspected of ties to Russia's
Marxist Bolshevik revolution, leading them on a death march into the
Syrian desert, depriving them of food and water. Young Turks continued
the Armenian massacre through 1923.
"We honor the memory of the 1.5 million Armenians who were brutally
massacred or marched to their death in the waning days of the Ottoman
Empire," Barack read from a prepared statement, stopping short of
labeling the event "genocide." Coined by Polish Jewish legal scholar
Raphael Lemkin [1900-1959] in 1944 following the Nazi extermination
of European Jews, the term genocide designates the "destruction of
a nation or an ethnic group," something akin to wiping out social,
cultural, political and religious institutions. Lemkin's first
definition in 1933 to the League of Nations included "a crime of
barbarity," citing the Ottoman Turks slaughter of Armenians during and
after WW I. Lemkin's definition surfaced in Count 3 at the Nuremberg
Trials of 24 Nazi war criminals, specifying defendants "conducted
deliberate and systematic genocide-namely, the extermination of racial
and national groups."
Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/article/armenian-genocide-denied-and-remembered
April 25 2012
John M. Curtis
LA City Buzz Examiner
Forced to deal with one of the great crimes of the 20th Century,
Armenian Remembrance Day commemorates the systematic extermination
of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Young Turks regime during
and after WWW I [1915-1923]. Calling the event "one of the worst
atrocities of the 20th Century," President Barack Obama stopped short
of labeling the massacre a "genocide," something vehemently rejected
by the current Turkish government. Events surrounding the Armenian
genocide have been well documented, beginning April 24, 1915 when
the Young Turk military rounded up some 250 Armenian intellectuals
and community leaders in Constantinople suspected of ties to Russia's
Marxist Bolshevik revolution, leading them on a death march into the
Syrian desert, depriving them of food and water. Young Turks continued
the Armenian massacre through 1923.
"We honor the memory of the 1.5 million Armenians who were brutally
massacred or marched to their death in the waning days of the Ottoman
Empire," Barack read from a prepared statement, stopping short of
labeling the event "genocide." Coined by Polish Jewish legal scholar
Raphael Lemkin [1900-1959] in 1944 following the Nazi extermination
of European Jews, the term genocide designates the "destruction of
a nation or an ethnic group," something akin to wiping out social,
cultural, political and religious institutions. Lemkin's first
definition in 1933 to the League of Nations included "a crime of
barbarity," citing the Ottoman Turks slaughter of Armenians during and
after WW I. Lemkin's definition surfaced in Count 3 at the Nuremberg
Trials of 24 Nazi war criminals, specifying defendants "conducted
deliberate and systematic genocide-namely, the extermination of racial
and national groups."