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THOMAS DE WAAL'S FUTILE ATTEMPT AT TRIVIALIZING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014
BY SETO BOYADJIAN, ESQ.
"A half-truth is a whole lie" - Yiddish proverb
Thomas de Waal is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. He has penned an article, "The G-Word - The
Armenian Massacre and the Politics of Genocide," that will appear
in the upcoming January-February 2015 issue of Foreign Affairs. This
article is the precursor of his forthcoming book, "Great Catastrophe:
Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide." Given the timing of
the publication of this article and the book, it is obvious that Mr.
de Waal opens the first salvo of Turkish denialism against the
centennial of the Armenian Genocide.
Mr. de Waal is an analyst who has repeatedly focused on
Armenian-Azerbaijani relations over the issue of the independent
Republic of Nagorno Karabakh and on Armenian-Turkish relations over
the issue of the Armenian Genocide. But he has a peculiar way of
showing integrity in his approach to these two fundamental issues.
It is peculiar because, as an "expert" in conflict resolution, Mr. de
Waal utilizes the old gimmick of double standard. On the issue of
Nagorno Karabakh, he is an ardent proponent of changing the status
quo - in favor of Azerbaijan and against Armenia. On the issue of the
Armenian Genocide, he is an avid defender of maintaining the status quo
- in favor of Turkey and against Armenia. As it is obvious, for Mr. de
Waal the concept of justice is a variable in his approach to conflict
resolution, depending on the identity of the party to the conflict.
Given his biased reputation on issues involving Armenia and Armenians,
Mr. de Waal's article did not strike any intellectual surprises
on the side of justice and truth in conflict resolutions. Through
this article, his entire endeavor amounts to a futile attempt at
trivializing the Armenian Genocide in order to reach his proposed
conclusion that it is time for Armenians to "bury their grandparents
and receive an acknowledgment from the Turkish state of the terrible
fate they suffered."
We should look beyond this insulting "advice" and, instead, focus on
the facts Mr. de Waal advances in support of his conclusion. We must
bear in mind that his attempt is to transform the Armenian Genocide
into a non-existing issue.
First, he claims that Armenians "discovered" Genocide in 1960s.
According to Mr. De Waal, for decades the "event of the Great
Catastrophe" were "more a matter of private grief than public record;"
that they spent more effort "fighting the Soviet Union rather than
Turkey;" and that only in the 1960s did they "seriously revive" the
massacres "as a public political issue" by being inspired from the
"Holocaust consciousness."
In making these blatant statements Mr. de Waal conveniently overlooks
the facts that as of the beginning of 1920s Armenians expressed their
collective consciousness of the Catastrophe and voiced their claims
for reparations. It is true that they did not refer to it as Genocide,
as they could not, because that term came into existence in 1944, when
Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin coined it based on the Ottoman massacres
of Armenians. Until that time, Armenians presented themselves to the
world and to Turkey as claimants of their national heritage destroyed
by Ottoman Turkey and of their national homeland occupied by Turkey.
As the world turned a blind eye on Armenian demands for justice, in
the 1920s they organized their own "Nuremberg trials" by punishing
the chief organizers and perpetrators of the Armenian massacres -
namely, Talaat pasha, Enver pasha, Jemal Azmi, Behaeddin Shakir,
Jivanshi Bey, and so on... At the same time, Armenians established
the Delegation of the Republic of Armenia to officially pursue their
claims for territorial and economic reparations from Turkey.
Contrary to Mr. de Waal's claims, Armenians actively pursued their
claims for justice since the 1920s; at the same time they remembered
their grandparents and they will do so forever.
Second, Mr. de Waal displays his irritation over the use of the
word "Genocide" in reference to the Armenian massacres. He credits
Raphael Lemkin for inventing that terminology and lobbying the United
Nations for the adoption of the 1948 Genocide Convention. However,
he attempts to discredit Lemkin as a "problematic personality;" he
criticizes the ambiguity of the Genocide Convention; and he deplores
the exploitation of the word Genocide. With that he arrives at the
notion that "The Armenian Diaspora saw the word as a perfect fit
to describe what happened" to them, thereby helping "activate a new
political movement..."
Mr. de Waal ignores the fact that even back in 1944, when Raphael
Lemkin coined the term Genocide he invoked the Armenian case as a
definitive example of Genocide in the 20th century. Lemkin described
the crime of Genocide as the "systematic destruction of a whole
national, racial or religious groups. The sort of thing that Hitler
did to the Jews and the Turks did to the Armenians."
Mr. de Waal also ignores the records that the United Nations enacted
on December 11, 1946, its first resolution on Genocide, known as UN
General Assembly Resolution 95(1). Thereafter, on December 9, 1948,
it adopted the UN Genocide Convention. Both the resolution and the
convention recognized the Armenian Genocide as the type of crime the
United Nations intended to prevent by codifying the existing customary
international rules and standards. Again, in 1948, the UN War Crimes
Commission invoked the Armenian Genocide as being "precisely . . . one
of the types of acts which the modern term 'crimes against humanity'
is intended to cover as a precedent for the Nuremberg tribunals."
Thereafter, in 1985, the UN Commission on Human Rights report,
entitled 'Study of the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide,' invoked the Armenian massacres as an example
of genocide. In the report, the UN commission stated, "The Nazi
aberration has unfortunately not been the only case of genocide in
the twentieth century. Among other examples, which can be cited as
qualifying, are . . . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 1915-1916."
As the official records stand, the Armenians did not see the word
Genocide "as a perfect fit," it was the United Nations who, on
behalf of the world governments, established and declared through its
resolutions and the Genocide Convention that genocidal acts of Ottoman
Turkey against Armenians and of Nazi Germany against Jews are Genocide.
Third, according to Mr. de Waal, even if the word Genocide is granted
to the Armenian massacres, the U.N. Genocide Convention does not have
retroactive applicability. He claims, without identifying them that
"Most international legal opinions are clear that the UN Genocide
Convention carries no retroactive force and therefore could not be
invoked to bring claims on dispossessed property."
Again, Mr. de Waal makes blanket statements without any substantiation
in fact or in law. And once again, he conveniently ignores the record,
the law and the facts. The provisions of the Genocide Convention carry
ex post facto applicability. They are indeed enforceable retroactively
based on the following points:
1. The dual vocation of the Genocide Convention in preventing and
punishing the perpetrator of the crime of Genocide provides the
necessary basis for its retroactivity;
2. The retribution mandated by the Genocide Convention makes it
retroactive, because, besides being condemned and punished for the
crime of Genocide, the perpetrator of the crime is also not to be
allowed to keep the fruits of the crime;
3. The Genocide Convention is declaratory of a pre-existing
internationally recognized wrongful act, thereby giving rise to
both state responsibility and individual penal liability. As such,
the convention is not creating a new criminal law.
4. To provide solid legal grounds to the foregoing points, on November
26, 1968 the UN adopted the Convention on the Non-Applicability of the
Statutory Limitation on War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. This
convention eliminated any time bar on the crime of genocide. Thus,
the provisions of the Genocide Convention are applicable to any crime
of genocide, irrespective of the time of its commission.
Mr. de Waal makes many other unsubstantiated statements in his
attempt at trivializing the Armenian Genocide. He twists facts,
to serve his purpose, as if to confirm Mark Twain's observation to
"get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
In the final analysis, Mr. de Waal's entire attempt is based on
uttering half-truths. And as the wise Yiddish proverb asserts,
"A half-truth is a whole lie."
http://asbarez.com/130164/thomas-de-waal%E2%80%99s-futile-attempt-at-trivializing-the-armenian-genocide/
From: A. Papazian
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014
BY SETO BOYADJIAN, ESQ.
"A half-truth is a whole lie" - Yiddish proverb
Thomas de Waal is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. He has penned an article, "The G-Word - The
Armenian Massacre and the Politics of Genocide," that will appear
in the upcoming January-February 2015 issue of Foreign Affairs. This
article is the precursor of his forthcoming book, "Great Catastrophe:
Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide." Given the timing of
the publication of this article and the book, it is obvious that Mr.
de Waal opens the first salvo of Turkish denialism against the
centennial of the Armenian Genocide.
Mr. de Waal is an analyst who has repeatedly focused on
Armenian-Azerbaijani relations over the issue of the independent
Republic of Nagorno Karabakh and on Armenian-Turkish relations over
the issue of the Armenian Genocide. But he has a peculiar way of
showing integrity in his approach to these two fundamental issues.
It is peculiar because, as an "expert" in conflict resolution, Mr. de
Waal utilizes the old gimmick of double standard. On the issue of
Nagorno Karabakh, he is an ardent proponent of changing the status
quo - in favor of Azerbaijan and against Armenia. On the issue of the
Armenian Genocide, he is an avid defender of maintaining the status quo
- in favor of Turkey and against Armenia. As it is obvious, for Mr. de
Waal the concept of justice is a variable in his approach to conflict
resolution, depending on the identity of the party to the conflict.
Given his biased reputation on issues involving Armenia and Armenians,
Mr. de Waal's article did not strike any intellectual surprises
on the side of justice and truth in conflict resolutions. Through
this article, his entire endeavor amounts to a futile attempt at
trivializing the Armenian Genocide in order to reach his proposed
conclusion that it is time for Armenians to "bury their grandparents
and receive an acknowledgment from the Turkish state of the terrible
fate they suffered."
We should look beyond this insulting "advice" and, instead, focus on
the facts Mr. de Waal advances in support of his conclusion. We must
bear in mind that his attempt is to transform the Armenian Genocide
into a non-existing issue.
First, he claims that Armenians "discovered" Genocide in 1960s.
According to Mr. De Waal, for decades the "event of the Great
Catastrophe" were "more a matter of private grief than public record;"
that they spent more effort "fighting the Soviet Union rather than
Turkey;" and that only in the 1960s did they "seriously revive" the
massacres "as a public political issue" by being inspired from the
"Holocaust consciousness."
In making these blatant statements Mr. de Waal conveniently overlooks
the facts that as of the beginning of 1920s Armenians expressed their
collective consciousness of the Catastrophe and voiced their claims
for reparations. It is true that they did not refer to it as Genocide,
as they could not, because that term came into existence in 1944, when
Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin coined it based on the Ottoman massacres
of Armenians. Until that time, Armenians presented themselves to the
world and to Turkey as claimants of their national heritage destroyed
by Ottoman Turkey and of their national homeland occupied by Turkey.
As the world turned a blind eye on Armenian demands for justice, in
the 1920s they organized their own "Nuremberg trials" by punishing
the chief organizers and perpetrators of the Armenian massacres -
namely, Talaat pasha, Enver pasha, Jemal Azmi, Behaeddin Shakir,
Jivanshi Bey, and so on... At the same time, Armenians established
the Delegation of the Republic of Armenia to officially pursue their
claims for territorial and economic reparations from Turkey.
Contrary to Mr. de Waal's claims, Armenians actively pursued their
claims for justice since the 1920s; at the same time they remembered
their grandparents and they will do so forever.
Second, Mr. de Waal displays his irritation over the use of the
word "Genocide" in reference to the Armenian massacres. He credits
Raphael Lemkin for inventing that terminology and lobbying the United
Nations for the adoption of the 1948 Genocide Convention. However,
he attempts to discredit Lemkin as a "problematic personality;" he
criticizes the ambiguity of the Genocide Convention; and he deplores
the exploitation of the word Genocide. With that he arrives at the
notion that "The Armenian Diaspora saw the word as a perfect fit
to describe what happened" to them, thereby helping "activate a new
political movement..."
Mr. de Waal ignores the fact that even back in 1944, when Raphael
Lemkin coined the term Genocide he invoked the Armenian case as a
definitive example of Genocide in the 20th century. Lemkin described
the crime of Genocide as the "systematic destruction of a whole
national, racial or religious groups. The sort of thing that Hitler
did to the Jews and the Turks did to the Armenians."
Mr. de Waal also ignores the records that the United Nations enacted
on December 11, 1946, its first resolution on Genocide, known as UN
General Assembly Resolution 95(1). Thereafter, on December 9, 1948,
it adopted the UN Genocide Convention. Both the resolution and the
convention recognized the Armenian Genocide as the type of crime the
United Nations intended to prevent by codifying the existing customary
international rules and standards. Again, in 1948, the UN War Crimes
Commission invoked the Armenian Genocide as being "precisely . . . one
of the types of acts which the modern term 'crimes against humanity'
is intended to cover as a precedent for the Nuremberg tribunals."
Thereafter, in 1985, the UN Commission on Human Rights report,
entitled 'Study of the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide,' invoked the Armenian massacres as an example
of genocide. In the report, the UN commission stated, "The Nazi
aberration has unfortunately not been the only case of genocide in
the twentieth century. Among other examples, which can be cited as
qualifying, are . . . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 1915-1916."
As the official records stand, the Armenians did not see the word
Genocide "as a perfect fit," it was the United Nations who, on
behalf of the world governments, established and declared through its
resolutions and the Genocide Convention that genocidal acts of Ottoman
Turkey against Armenians and of Nazi Germany against Jews are Genocide.
Third, according to Mr. de Waal, even if the word Genocide is granted
to the Armenian massacres, the U.N. Genocide Convention does not have
retroactive applicability. He claims, without identifying them that
"Most international legal opinions are clear that the UN Genocide
Convention carries no retroactive force and therefore could not be
invoked to bring claims on dispossessed property."
Again, Mr. de Waal makes blanket statements without any substantiation
in fact or in law. And once again, he conveniently ignores the record,
the law and the facts. The provisions of the Genocide Convention carry
ex post facto applicability. They are indeed enforceable retroactively
based on the following points:
1. The dual vocation of the Genocide Convention in preventing and
punishing the perpetrator of the crime of Genocide provides the
necessary basis for its retroactivity;
2. The retribution mandated by the Genocide Convention makes it
retroactive, because, besides being condemned and punished for the
crime of Genocide, the perpetrator of the crime is also not to be
allowed to keep the fruits of the crime;
3. The Genocide Convention is declaratory of a pre-existing
internationally recognized wrongful act, thereby giving rise to
both state responsibility and individual penal liability. As such,
the convention is not creating a new criminal law.
4. To provide solid legal grounds to the foregoing points, on November
26, 1968 the UN adopted the Convention on the Non-Applicability of the
Statutory Limitation on War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. This
convention eliminated any time bar on the crime of genocide. Thus,
the provisions of the Genocide Convention are applicable to any crime
of genocide, irrespective of the time of its commission.
Mr. de Waal makes many other unsubstantiated statements in his
attempt at trivializing the Armenian Genocide. He twists facts,
to serve his purpose, as if to confirm Mark Twain's observation to
"get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
In the final analysis, Mr. de Waal's entire attempt is based on
uttering half-truths. And as the wise Yiddish proverb asserts,
"A half-truth is a whole lie."
http://asbarez.com/130164/thomas-de-waal%E2%80%99s-futile-attempt-at-trivializing-the-armenian-genocide/
From: A. Papazian