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2015: HEAD FOR REPAIRS
Translated from French.
2015 is both the year of opportunities for the Armenian cause, but
also that of all the dangers as for the internal and foreign policy of
Armenia. Meanwhile, the initiatives on the front of the Armenian cause
require an Armenian transnational consensus. For now, the highly
demanding expectations of the diaspora are substantially disappointed
by the lack of anticipation, the lack of visibility of ongoing
actions, whether by the Armenian State, the main political
institutions of diaspora, but also by the unified Centennial
Committee; which is not a surprise: it's been over two years since
there are voices in the Diaspora to denounce the lack of leadership,
passivity, and neutralization of goodwill people.
The activists, who abhor vacuum, initiated various actions and
programmes nourished by good intentions, thanks to funds that are not
entirely fortuitous, nor specifically devoid of political goals by the
benefactors' sources. These activities are mainly focused on the
so-called dialogue and reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian
civil societies, as if anyone needed these programs to communicate,
further forgetting that reconciliation cannot be built without the
establishment of truth. Other initiatives, indeed bolder, but more
prone to manipulations, such as groups allegedly representing Western
Armenia aim at trying to enter into direct negotiations with the
Turkish authorities. Finally, associative or individual statements in
the Diaspora as in Armenia flourish in all directions. Most, however,
also appear as politically unrealistic as legally ill-founded.
Without going into detail, it is useful to recall some legal evidence.
The crimes committed against the Armenian population can no longer be
subjected of a criminal trial: the organizers, perpetrators or
accomplices of the massacres are all dead; the victims and witnesses
as well. The Ottoman trials, in 1919 ("the trial of Unionists'), had
already tried and convicted, primarily, the responsible persons,
mostly in abstentia, for the mass crimes committed against the
Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. Second, the International
Court of Justice is an interstate court, where only the States
parties, the United Nations General Assembly or the Security Council
may proceed. The double question that arises is: Is the Armenian
Genocide of 1915-1916 a dispute between the Turkish state and the
Armenian State? Let us remind that the latter did not exist at that
time. Assuming that [Armenia] is recognised it's just standing and its
interest in taking legal action, which means in law would it put
forward? Let us remind that the whole procedure requires that the
opposing State accepts the principle and terms of referral, except
that it is imposed to it by the United Nations General Assembly or the
Security Council. This procedure assumes in all cases that the
international responsibility of the Turkish-Ottoman State be
established in the massacres and deportations committed in 1915-1916;
an element that will be challenged by Turkey, but the existing
evidence is sufficient.
In parallel, we find that the actions of the Armenian Genocide
recognition by foreign governments or parliaments have stagnated over
the past decade; the soothing speeches of Turkey and the
Armenian-Turkish protocols from October 2009 are not strangers to this
result. On the eve of 2015, we are witnessing resurgence of activity
but in no great strategic importance forums, and the phenomenon
promises to be ephemeral and illusory for two main reasons.
The first is that Turkey does not want to admit and fight with
financial and diplomatic forces any legal recognition of his crimes as
genocide qualifier or crimes against humanity. They prefer to evoke
the suffering of the Armenian people and the inhumanity of population
transfers during the troubled period of the First World War. Assuming
de facto qualification and guilt of "war crimes" (those crimes already
have a legal reality in 1915, even if they were not codified
extensively), it provides Turkey the means to develop an application
counterclaim for damages suffered by the Muslim Turkish population in
eastern Anatolia, because of the actions of Armenian armed bands or
Armenian legions supported by the Russian army; actual events that are
obviously not relevant for the period 1915-1916, but which, viewed in
the broader context of the 1914-1918 war, would constitute sufficient
grounds to support an application.
The second reason is that Turkey remains more than ever now, a key
pillar of international diplomacy, particularly in the near and the
Middle East. In that respect, the United States, Israel, and Great
Britain (see the note issued by the Foreign Office on December 9,
2014[i]), on the one hand and Russia on the other, competing to win
diplomatically in the region, engaged willy-nilly into a strategic
partnership with Turkey. There is little hope for these countries to
change their course of action and commit themselves to actions or
support those of Armenia, for the political recognition of the
genocide.
This de facto impunity, gives Turkey the opportunity to strengthen its
business of genocide denial and dissemination of its falsified version
of history. The irruption of Azerbaijan in this business has
strengthened Turkey's nuisance capacity, even if the hateful, racist
and extremist policy of the Azerbaijani towards Armenians hinders
increasingly Turkey.
The political forces in the Diaspora admit more or less stalled
Armenian Genocide recognition process in the world; inequality of arms
and state funding is acute. This recognition, however, was largely
acquired from public opinion and from the scientific community in the
world, and 2015 will reach the peak of its process. The problem
remains entirely for the post-2015 period. It is also raising some
concern for 2015, as Turkey is doing everything possible to counteract
the media and political significance and impact of the commemoration
of the massacres and deportations of 1915-1916. Their initiatives have
started well in advance.
Dialogue and reconciliation tactics: a win-win move for Turkey
This strategy started in 2004, when Turkey was engaged in the business
of seduction of the European Union. They have understood the strategic
interest, and the United States and the European Commission directly
interested in resumption of diplomatic relations and to a
rapprochement between the civil societies of both countries have
provided funding. For Westerners, this strategy seeks to marginalize
the so-called extremists of the Diaspora and to favour instead direct
dialogue with a weakened Armenia. For the "NGO industry" greedy
financial aid, this represents a direct and immediate windfall (just
for year 2015, about ?¬ 2 million was given to the Armenian and Turkish
NGOs). Turkey draws political dividend.
This process diverts indeed the Armenian side of the political
problems that constitute the substance of the dispute. Besides, these
initiatives affect an infinitesimal segment of the Turkish population,
which over a long period, taking into account the demographic and
economic vitality of the Turkish population, looking to the future
rather than to the past, weakens the hypothetical effects that some
Armenians bet on.
Dialogue programs and intercultural exchange are funded by the
European Union and the US public or private aid but also, which is
more recent, by Armenian and Turkish private foundations. These
programs would not exist without these aids. We could read in recent
weeks some self-congratulatory statements, inclusive those on behalf
of sincere activists of the Armenian cause, which fall short of truly
demonstrating and measuring the outreach of these initiatives. They
should have in this respect taken into consideration the resurgence of
revisionist propaganda and the political and legal activism of Turkish
parastatal stakeholders; Let us remember that this political and legal
activism manifested in France through the legal suits against
activists of the Armenian cause or against Parliamentary Friends of
it. In the United States, where "watchdogs" of the official Turkish
thesis on the Armenian Genocide are institutionally organized, it
manifests in a systematic, politically and legally in American public
life, and paradoxically paralyzes universities. The attack extends
beyond the debate on genocide; scribes in the pay of the Turkish state
present the Armenians as anti-Semites in the US and Israeli press.
Another indirect effect of these programmatic platforms have enabled
Turkey firstly, to gather useful information and ideas to fuel its
strategic analyses and, secondly, to identify some diaspora Armenians,
with which Turkey has decided to pursue this time officially a more
direct form of cooperation (see Harut Sassounian editorial of 10 April
2012[ii]). This phenomenon, which started in the United States, but
later in Europe, is now in battle.
Finally, the diplomacy of Turkey takes appearances of a soothing
speech and openness: the recall of memory for years of "idyllic"
cohabitation in the Ottoman Empire, the expression of a "shared
suffering" and even the recognition of the inhumanity of the
displacements of the Armenian population. This scenario is not new
(there for at least eight years), but its gradual staging hides a
threat, real, that of a public and official a minima recognition, such
as looming for some time, the apology for the suffering of the
Armenian people during the First World War, along with the restitution
of property and buildings belonging to the Armenian religious
institutions; A Turkish government decree has already solved in 2011
the case of properties and assets belonging to the Armenian [Greek and
Jewish as well) religious and cultural minorities foundations (Vakfı,
institutions created by imperial edicts at the end of the 19th century
or beginning of the 20th) instructing the return of property that
entered their capital between 1936 and 2007, but that they had been
confiscated from 1974 onward.
Turkey could easily convince foreign governments that the apology and
refunds constitute an honourable compromise and sufficient to do
justice, which would place the Armenian nation wishing to obtain more
in a very difficult position. To avoid such an outcome and not leave
Turkey alone dictate the future, an offensive strategy is needed from
the Armenian side. It must anticipate and mobilize and be built upon a
pan-Armenian consensus. 2015 represents a tremendous window of
political opportunities to engage precisely in this direction and
abandon the reactive and defensive policy. But the window is narrow,
and one shall not miss it. This is an opportunity to move the
political and diplomatic battle on new field and new grounds,
reminding superpowers: USA, France, Britain, Russia, and Germany at
first, their debts and obligations toward Armenians, and to exploit
the Diaspora as spearhead of this new policy. The Armenian state is
diplomatically constrained by the conflict linked to the
Nagorno-Karabakh (Turkey determines the opening of its border or
ratification of the protocols with Armenia to the evacuation of some
territories) and by its total dependence on Russia; a dominant partner
who has signed a strategic partnership at the regional political and
economic level with Turkey.
Diaspora, which is either asleep or tired of political impasses in
terms of domestic and foreign policy of Armenia, in its ongoing quest
for justice awaits a major action that would open new political
perspectives and consequent work for activists; but also an
opportunity to mobilize every family, and to make work smartly in
close coordination the political and diplomatic forces from Armenia
and Diaspora.
The launch of a repair claim process is the political and legal option
that meets these expectations and criteria. It would withdraw from the
double impasse that is the illusory nature of a formal political
recognition of the genocide by Turkey on the one hand, and the
difficulty one may see, in strictly legal terms, to qualify massacres
and atrocities of 1915 as genocide, on the other.
Reparations are the "new frontier" of the Armenian cause[iii]
The strategic means to be made is the one to engage, on several
fronts, legal and political initiatives to obtain reparations. It
would not be wise to publicly discuss and deliver adversity the
objectives, legal means and arguments underlying them. However, it is
worth noting some quite widespread ideas, legally flawed or built on
wrong misconceptions.
The first is to believe that the official recognition of the genocide
by Turkey as a crime qualified as such is a necessary condition to
initiate requests for financial and moral reparations for the crimes
committed in 1915-1916 by the State Turkish-Ottoman and damage to
property and wealth of the Armenian nation through dispossession,
destruction and confiscations. There is nothing as such in
international public law. The state crime is established and can be
proven and whatever its qualification, it opens right to compensation
to the victims, or rather, a hundred years later, to the beneficiaries
of the latter.
The second misconception is that Turkey longer fear the Armenian land
claims that claims for repairs. Armenians should not lie to
themselves. Armenia is a micro-state, already mired in a military
conflict with Azerbaijan, and confronted with a rising discontent
domestically. Does today's Armenia represent a sufficient political
and military power to support such claims? Armenia would not find
otherwise alliances in this prospective.
Solutions exist and a legal and political actions' plan is even ready,
including its operational aspects. Study groups, complementary to each
other (AGIR[iv] and AGRSG[v] in the Diaspora, and a group in
Armenia[vi]), did work on the subject. Catholicos Aram I, for its
part, organized a major conference on the subject in Beirut in 2012.
The strategy must be based on solid and lucid legal foundations and
not rely on the support of third countries. It must be designed in
such a manner that it cannot be injurious to the territorial claims of
Armenia (The State is the only subject of law can act on this issue in
international law) or to continuous actions of political recognition
of Genocide by Turkey or by other countries. This qualification, as we
have said above, is not a prerequisite for requesting repairs.
Moreover, the concept of repair is very broad and contains material
and moral aspects. The moral aspects include among others the
admission of guilt, pardon, stopping the denial of the facts, a proper
educational policy.
To understand that the financial stakes are far more compelling and
disturbing to the Turkish state, one must watch the amounts of
compensation received from Germany by the institution established by
Holocaust survivors Jews (the Claims Conference), i.e. $ 60 billion,
and the result of direct and parallel negotiations between the State
of Israel and Germany, 3 billion DM in 1952, in the name and on behalf
of the victims having no heirs. Compensation claims continue today
(see the recent agreement signed between the French railway company
SNCF and The United States government). Once the process starts, the
field of possible queries is beyond imagination.
The study published by the AGRSG, which has sought to define and
measure the repairs in all its dimensions in the case of the Armenian
genocide, made a first estimate of the damage which, by updating the
amounts indicated in the preparatory conferences of the Treaty of
Sevres (1920) in current values, reaches a compensation amount close
to $ 100 billion. More modern methods of calculation will refine these
figures. Those are present in the minds of Turkish leaders, but also
amongst the so-called friendly Turkish "intellectuals", who quickly
evacuate the question of a hand backhand when it is addressed. The
strategy must support where it hurts. This requires a well-thought and
structured forward plan. In law, nothing is simple, either the meaning
of words or interaction principles, especially when, in this case,
local law, regional law and international law are mingled. The
positive law is further subject to the interpretation of men that
deliver justice with all the uncertainties and errors that can
accompany their judgment. International justice is particularly
related to international relations. Appeals filed with the United
States in the case Movsesian and al. have shown the limits of the
federal justice, when diplomacy interferes.
Then, the question that arises naturally is: if everything is ready,
why no political decision is being announced and no action engaged?
The political, economic and social situation of Armenia reached an
unparalleled state of desolation: the war with neighbouring Azerbaijan
has resumed on border lines; the rapprochement of Azerbaijan with
Russia, under kind scrutiny of Turkey, also looms and is worrying;
membership in humiliating conditions, to the Eurasian Economic Union,
under pressure from Russia, not only spent the break of diplomatic
balancing between blocks but it has already resulted in a threat of
economic and monetary chaos; Russia takes take Armenia in his descent
into hell. The economic and social discontent grows inside, due to
price inflation, and the number of potential migrants is still
increasing. To top it all, it's been a resurgence of repression of
political rights and freedoms. By imitation of the Russian model,
physical attacks on activists and opponents and arrests of protesters
resumed and Armenia develops draconian laws to control NGO funding
sources and sources of information for journalists.
So it is in this context that national consensus, in terms of legal
and political actions, is searched for. The appropriate next deadline
to observe is January 29, 2015, date of the next plenary meeting of
the Centennial Committee. Speculation about the arrival of a Turkish
high authority in the commemorations of April 24 in Yerevan only
reinforce the relevance and urgency of an official announcement of the
campaign launch for claims for repairs.
Raffi Kalfayan
December 19, 2014
France
________________________________
[i] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/384757/Armenia_II__2_.pdf
[ii] http://armenianweekly.com/2012/04/10/sassounian-turkeys-foreign-minister-in-search-of-soft-armenians/
[iii] http://asbarez.com/109619/reparations-the-new-frontier-of-the-armenian-cause-and-its-challenges/
[iv] Armenian Genocide International Reparation, a legal and judiciary
action group
[v] Armenian Genocide Reparations Study Group, a political study group
[vi] A legal study group controlled by the Constitutional Court of Armenia
http://www.armenews.com/IMG/Cap_re_paration.pdf
Saturday, December 20, 2014,
Ara © armenews.com
http://www.armenews.com/article.php3?id_article=106330
Translated from French.
2015 is both the year of opportunities for the Armenian cause, but
also that of all the dangers as for the internal and foreign policy of
Armenia. Meanwhile, the initiatives on the front of the Armenian cause
require an Armenian transnational consensus. For now, the highly
demanding expectations of the diaspora are substantially disappointed
by the lack of anticipation, the lack of visibility of ongoing
actions, whether by the Armenian State, the main political
institutions of diaspora, but also by the unified Centennial
Committee; which is not a surprise: it's been over two years since
there are voices in the Diaspora to denounce the lack of leadership,
passivity, and neutralization of goodwill people.
The activists, who abhor vacuum, initiated various actions and
programmes nourished by good intentions, thanks to funds that are not
entirely fortuitous, nor specifically devoid of political goals by the
benefactors' sources. These activities are mainly focused on the
so-called dialogue and reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian
civil societies, as if anyone needed these programs to communicate,
further forgetting that reconciliation cannot be built without the
establishment of truth. Other initiatives, indeed bolder, but more
prone to manipulations, such as groups allegedly representing Western
Armenia aim at trying to enter into direct negotiations with the
Turkish authorities. Finally, associative or individual statements in
the Diaspora as in Armenia flourish in all directions. Most, however,
also appear as politically unrealistic as legally ill-founded.
Without going into detail, it is useful to recall some legal evidence.
The crimes committed against the Armenian population can no longer be
subjected of a criminal trial: the organizers, perpetrators or
accomplices of the massacres are all dead; the victims and witnesses
as well. The Ottoman trials, in 1919 ("the trial of Unionists'), had
already tried and convicted, primarily, the responsible persons,
mostly in abstentia, for the mass crimes committed against the
Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. Second, the International
Court of Justice is an interstate court, where only the States
parties, the United Nations General Assembly or the Security Council
may proceed. The double question that arises is: Is the Armenian
Genocide of 1915-1916 a dispute between the Turkish state and the
Armenian State? Let us remind that the latter did not exist at that
time. Assuming that [Armenia] is recognised it's just standing and its
interest in taking legal action, which means in law would it put
forward? Let us remind that the whole procedure requires that the
opposing State accepts the principle and terms of referral, except
that it is imposed to it by the United Nations General Assembly or the
Security Council. This procedure assumes in all cases that the
international responsibility of the Turkish-Ottoman State be
established in the massacres and deportations committed in 1915-1916;
an element that will be challenged by Turkey, but the existing
evidence is sufficient.
In parallel, we find that the actions of the Armenian Genocide
recognition by foreign governments or parliaments have stagnated over
the past decade; the soothing speeches of Turkey and the
Armenian-Turkish protocols from October 2009 are not strangers to this
result. On the eve of 2015, we are witnessing resurgence of activity
but in no great strategic importance forums, and the phenomenon
promises to be ephemeral and illusory for two main reasons.
The first is that Turkey does not want to admit and fight with
financial and diplomatic forces any legal recognition of his crimes as
genocide qualifier or crimes against humanity. They prefer to evoke
the suffering of the Armenian people and the inhumanity of population
transfers during the troubled period of the First World War. Assuming
de facto qualification and guilt of "war crimes" (those crimes already
have a legal reality in 1915, even if they were not codified
extensively), it provides Turkey the means to develop an application
counterclaim for damages suffered by the Muslim Turkish population in
eastern Anatolia, because of the actions of Armenian armed bands or
Armenian legions supported by the Russian army; actual events that are
obviously not relevant for the period 1915-1916, but which, viewed in
the broader context of the 1914-1918 war, would constitute sufficient
grounds to support an application.
The second reason is that Turkey remains more than ever now, a key
pillar of international diplomacy, particularly in the near and the
Middle East. In that respect, the United States, Israel, and Great
Britain (see the note issued by the Foreign Office on December 9,
2014[i]), on the one hand and Russia on the other, competing to win
diplomatically in the region, engaged willy-nilly into a strategic
partnership with Turkey. There is little hope for these countries to
change their course of action and commit themselves to actions or
support those of Armenia, for the political recognition of the
genocide.
This de facto impunity, gives Turkey the opportunity to strengthen its
business of genocide denial and dissemination of its falsified version
of history. The irruption of Azerbaijan in this business has
strengthened Turkey's nuisance capacity, even if the hateful, racist
and extremist policy of the Azerbaijani towards Armenians hinders
increasingly Turkey.
The political forces in the Diaspora admit more or less stalled
Armenian Genocide recognition process in the world; inequality of arms
and state funding is acute. This recognition, however, was largely
acquired from public opinion and from the scientific community in the
world, and 2015 will reach the peak of its process. The problem
remains entirely for the post-2015 period. It is also raising some
concern for 2015, as Turkey is doing everything possible to counteract
the media and political significance and impact of the commemoration
of the massacres and deportations of 1915-1916. Their initiatives have
started well in advance.
Dialogue and reconciliation tactics: a win-win move for Turkey
This strategy started in 2004, when Turkey was engaged in the business
of seduction of the European Union. They have understood the strategic
interest, and the United States and the European Commission directly
interested in resumption of diplomatic relations and to a
rapprochement between the civil societies of both countries have
provided funding. For Westerners, this strategy seeks to marginalize
the so-called extremists of the Diaspora and to favour instead direct
dialogue with a weakened Armenia. For the "NGO industry" greedy
financial aid, this represents a direct and immediate windfall (just
for year 2015, about ?¬ 2 million was given to the Armenian and Turkish
NGOs). Turkey draws political dividend.
This process diverts indeed the Armenian side of the political
problems that constitute the substance of the dispute. Besides, these
initiatives affect an infinitesimal segment of the Turkish population,
which over a long period, taking into account the demographic and
economic vitality of the Turkish population, looking to the future
rather than to the past, weakens the hypothetical effects that some
Armenians bet on.
Dialogue programs and intercultural exchange are funded by the
European Union and the US public or private aid but also, which is
more recent, by Armenian and Turkish private foundations. These
programs would not exist without these aids. We could read in recent
weeks some self-congratulatory statements, inclusive those on behalf
of sincere activists of the Armenian cause, which fall short of truly
demonstrating and measuring the outreach of these initiatives. They
should have in this respect taken into consideration the resurgence of
revisionist propaganda and the political and legal activism of Turkish
parastatal stakeholders; Let us remember that this political and legal
activism manifested in France through the legal suits against
activists of the Armenian cause or against Parliamentary Friends of
it. In the United States, where "watchdogs" of the official Turkish
thesis on the Armenian Genocide are institutionally organized, it
manifests in a systematic, politically and legally in American public
life, and paradoxically paralyzes universities. The attack extends
beyond the debate on genocide; scribes in the pay of the Turkish state
present the Armenians as anti-Semites in the US and Israeli press.
Another indirect effect of these programmatic platforms have enabled
Turkey firstly, to gather useful information and ideas to fuel its
strategic analyses and, secondly, to identify some diaspora Armenians,
with which Turkey has decided to pursue this time officially a more
direct form of cooperation (see Harut Sassounian editorial of 10 April
2012[ii]). This phenomenon, which started in the United States, but
later in Europe, is now in battle.
Finally, the diplomacy of Turkey takes appearances of a soothing
speech and openness: the recall of memory for years of "idyllic"
cohabitation in the Ottoman Empire, the expression of a "shared
suffering" and even the recognition of the inhumanity of the
displacements of the Armenian population. This scenario is not new
(there for at least eight years), but its gradual staging hides a
threat, real, that of a public and official a minima recognition, such
as looming for some time, the apology for the suffering of the
Armenian people during the First World War, along with the restitution
of property and buildings belonging to the Armenian religious
institutions; A Turkish government decree has already solved in 2011
the case of properties and assets belonging to the Armenian [Greek and
Jewish as well) religious and cultural minorities foundations (Vakfı,
institutions created by imperial edicts at the end of the 19th century
or beginning of the 20th) instructing the return of property that
entered their capital between 1936 and 2007, but that they had been
confiscated from 1974 onward.
Turkey could easily convince foreign governments that the apology and
refunds constitute an honourable compromise and sufficient to do
justice, which would place the Armenian nation wishing to obtain more
in a very difficult position. To avoid such an outcome and not leave
Turkey alone dictate the future, an offensive strategy is needed from
the Armenian side. It must anticipate and mobilize and be built upon a
pan-Armenian consensus. 2015 represents a tremendous window of
political opportunities to engage precisely in this direction and
abandon the reactive and defensive policy. But the window is narrow,
and one shall not miss it. This is an opportunity to move the
political and diplomatic battle on new field and new grounds,
reminding superpowers: USA, France, Britain, Russia, and Germany at
first, their debts and obligations toward Armenians, and to exploit
the Diaspora as spearhead of this new policy. The Armenian state is
diplomatically constrained by the conflict linked to the
Nagorno-Karabakh (Turkey determines the opening of its border or
ratification of the protocols with Armenia to the evacuation of some
territories) and by its total dependence on Russia; a dominant partner
who has signed a strategic partnership at the regional political and
economic level with Turkey.
Diaspora, which is either asleep or tired of political impasses in
terms of domestic and foreign policy of Armenia, in its ongoing quest
for justice awaits a major action that would open new political
perspectives and consequent work for activists; but also an
opportunity to mobilize every family, and to make work smartly in
close coordination the political and diplomatic forces from Armenia
and Diaspora.
The launch of a repair claim process is the political and legal option
that meets these expectations and criteria. It would withdraw from the
double impasse that is the illusory nature of a formal political
recognition of the genocide by Turkey on the one hand, and the
difficulty one may see, in strictly legal terms, to qualify massacres
and atrocities of 1915 as genocide, on the other.
Reparations are the "new frontier" of the Armenian cause[iii]
The strategic means to be made is the one to engage, on several
fronts, legal and political initiatives to obtain reparations. It
would not be wise to publicly discuss and deliver adversity the
objectives, legal means and arguments underlying them. However, it is
worth noting some quite widespread ideas, legally flawed or built on
wrong misconceptions.
The first is to believe that the official recognition of the genocide
by Turkey as a crime qualified as such is a necessary condition to
initiate requests for financial and moral reparations for the crimes
committed in 1915-1916 by the State Turkish-Ottoman and damage to
property and wealth of the Armenian nation through dispossession,
destruction and confiscations. There is nothing as such in
international public law. The state crime is established and can be
proven and whatever its qualification, it opens right to compensation
to the victims, or rather, a hundred years later, to the beneficiaries
of the latter.
The second misconception is that Turkey longer fear the Armenian land
claims that claims for repairs. Armenians should not lie to
themselves. Armenia is a micro-state, already mired in a military
conflict with Azerbaijan, and confronted with a rising discontent
domestically. Does today's Armenia represent a sufficient political
and military power to support such claims? Armenia would not find
otherwise alliances in this prospective.
Solutions exist and a legal and political actions' plan is even ready,
including its operational aspects. Study groups, complementary to each
other (AGIR[iv] and AGRSG[v] in the Diaspora, and a group in
Armenia[vi]), did work on the subject. Catholicos Aram I, for its
part, organized a major conference on the subject in Beirut in 2012.
The strategy must be based on solid and lucid legal foundations and
not rely on the support of third countries. It must be designed in
such a manner that it cannot be injurious to the territorial claims of
Armenia (The State is the only subject of law can act on this issue in
international law) or to continuous actions of political recognition
of Genocide by Turkey or by other countries. This qualification, as we
have said above, is not a prerequisite for requesting repairs.
Moreover, the concept of repair is very broad and contains material
and moral aspects. The moral aspects include among others the
admission of guilt, pardon, stopping the denial of the facts, a proper
educational policy.
To understand that the financial stakes are far more compelling and
disturbing to the Turkish state, one must watch the amounts of
compensation received from Germany by the institution established by
Holocaust survivors Jews (the Claims Conference), i.e. $ 60 billion,
and the result of direct and parallel negotiations between the State
of Israel and Germany, 3 billion DM in 1952, in the name and on behalf
of the victims having no heirs. Compensation claims continue today
(see the recent agreement signed between the French railway company
SNCF and The United States government). Once the process starts, the
field of possible queries is beyond imagination.
The study published by the AGRSG, which has sought to define and
measure the repairs in all its dimensions in the case of the Armenian
genocide, made a first estimate of the damage which, by updating the
amounts indicated in the preparatory conferences of the Treaty of
Sevres (1920) in current values, reaches a compensation amount close
to $ 100 billion. More modern methods of calculation will refine these
figures. Those are present in the minds of Turkish leaders, but also
amongst the so-called friendly Turkish "intellectuals", who quickly
evacuate the question of a hand backhand when it is addressed. The
strategy must support where it hurts. This requires a well-thought and
structured forward plan. In law, nothing is simple, either the meaning
of words or interaction principles, especially when, in this case,
local law, regional law and international law are mingled. The
positive law is further subject to the interpretation of men that
deliver justice with all the uncertainties and errors that can
accompany their judgment. International justice is particularly
related to international relations. Appeals filed with the United
States in the case Movsesian and al. have shown the limits of the
federal justice, when diplomacy interferes.
Then, the question that arises naturally is: if everything is ready,
why no political decision is being announced and no action engaged?
The political, economic and social situation of Armenia reached an
unparalleled state of desolation: the war with neighbouring Azerbaijan
has resumed on border lines; the rapprochement of Azerbaijan with
Russia, under kind scrutiny of Turkey, also looms and is worrying;
membership in humiliating conditions, to the Eurasian Economic Union,
under pressure from Russia, not only spent the break of diplomatic
balancing between blocks but it has already resulted in a threat of
economic and monetary chaos; Russia takes take Armenia in his descent
into hell. The economic and social discontent grows inside, due to
price inflation, and the number of potential migrants is still
increasing. To top it all, it's been a resurgence of repression of
political rights and freedoms. By imitation of the Russian model,
physical attacks on activists and opponents and arrests of protesters
resumed and Armenia develops draconian laws to control NGO funding
sources and sources of information for journalists.
So it is in this context that national consensus, in terms of legal
and political actions, is searched for. The appropriate next deadline
to observe is January 29, 2015, date of the next plenary meeting of
the Centennial Committee. Speculation about the arrival of a Turkish
high authority in the commemorations of April 24 in Yerevan only
reinforce the relevance and urgency of an official announcement of the
campaign launch for claims for repairs.
Raffi Kalfayan
December 19, 2014
France
________________________________
[i] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/384757/Armenia_II__2_.pdf
[ii] http://armenianweekly.com/2012/04/10/sassounian-turkeys-foreign-minister-in-search-of-soft-armenians/
[iii] http://asbarez.com/109619/reparations-the-new-frontier-of-the-armenian-cause-and-its-challenges/
[iv] Armenian Genocide International Reparation, a legal and judiciary
action group
[v] Armenian Genocide Reparations Study Group, a political study group
[vi] A legal study group controlled by the Constitutional Court of Armenia
http://www.armenews.com/IMG/Cap_re_paration.pdf
Saturday, December 20, 2014,
Ara © armenews.com
http://www.armenews.com/article.php3?id_article=106330