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Fresno Bee, CA
April 18 2015
100 years later, Armenian genocide still not universally accepted
By Roy Gutman
YEREVAN, Armenia -- * More than 1 million Armenians died starting in
1915 after an Ottoman Empire-ordered deportation.
* Turkey says history not clear and that in any case Armenians bear
some of the blame.
* Support beginning to mount for calling it a genocide.
In the swank shops and tidy cafés that line the new pedestrian zone in
Armenia's capital, there's barely a hint that nearly everyone here is
the descendent of a generation that escaped with their lives in a
harrowing flight from Ottoman Turkey in the midst of World War I.
On the eve of the centennial commemoration of what Armenians call Meds
Yeghern, or "the great calamity," posters featuring a violet
forget-me-not and a slogan, "We remember and we demand," dot Yerevan.
The symbol hasn't caught on, even in government offices.
Yet Armenia, and the slaughter, is at the center of world attention as
the April 24 anniversary nears.
French tenor Charles Aznavour, widely hailed as France's Sinatra, both
of whose parents were of Armenian descent, will be here, as will
French President Francois Hollande and Russian President Vladimir
Putin. Pope Francis, who many had hoped would attend, sent a message
assuring his "closeness" when the Armenian Apostolic Church on April
23 canonizes as a group the "martyrs" of 1915. Thousands of members of
the Armenian disapora are expected to travel here; Kim Kardashian,
arguably the most famous of American Armenians, already has come and
gone, with her husband, Kanye West.
It's a heady time for this small, landlocked state in the south
Caucasus, one of the nations that emerged from the collapse of the
Soviet Union a generation ago and yet remains largely isolated.
Even the event for which it's best remembered, the "immense and
senseless slaughter" that's "widely considered the first genocide of
the 20th century," in the recent words of Pope Francis, remains
controversial, its details contested, its origins and causes angrily
debated.
The pontiff's words at a papal Mass in the Armenian rite to
commemorate the centennial of the atrocities, and his admonition to
modern-day Turkey not to deny the "evil," provoked a sharp response
from Ankara, which recalled its ambassador from the Vatican.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the pope's statement
as "nonsense." He pointed out that historians have yet to reach a
conclusion on what took place. "I would like to warn the honorable
pope not to make such a mistake again," he said.
Such talk from Turkey has for years prevented broad acceptance that
what happened in 1915 was genocide. Only 20 countries have accepted
that definition for the Armenian events, and they don't include the
U.S., Britain, Germany or Israel, though the tide may be turning: The
European Parliament approved a resolution recognizing genocide a few
days ago, but U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently called the
1915 events "an atrocity crime."
Leaders of Armenia see the pope's statement as a major victory.
"Calling things by their rightful name cannot but have a strong
impact," said President Serzh Sargsyan. Added Foreign Minister Edward
Nalbandian, the pontiff's words "show that Turkey and the
international community are talking in different languages."
Lost in the noise was the pope's call for Armenia and Turkey to take
up the path of reconciliation again. "Despite conflicts and tensions,
Armenians and Turks have lived long periods of peaceful coexistence in
the past, and even in the midst of violence, they have experienced
times of solidarity and mutual help," he said.
Reconciliation seems unlikely in the short term, however, not least
because both nations have been unable to come to a common
understanding of what happened when Armenians were forcibly relocated
from what's now Turkey during World War I. Indisputably, hundreds of
thousands died. Armenians claim that's what the Ottoman Empire
intended. Turkey says that's not clear and that in any case Armenians
bear some of the blame.
Today's Armenia
In Armenia, nearly every family was affected by the deportations, and
many are convinced that the killings and deaths were premeditated.
At the ultra-modern hilltop campus of the American University of
Armenia, which is affiliated with the University of California, most
students in a course on genocide defended the government drive for
international genocide recognition.
"The genocide issue is what unites all Armenians in the world," said
Areg Badalyan, 23, one of whose grandfathers was from Mus, in eastern
Turkey. He said Turkish recognition of Armenian genocide should be the
country's first priority.
Marianna Javakhyan, 22, whose great-grandfather fled Kharpert, now
known as Elazig, agreed that demanding genocide recognition was "very
important for our national identity, for keeping the whole nation
together, for one's dignity."
Still, in underdeveloped Armenia, there are those who suggest the
country should move on. "If we did not have the recognition of
genocide as a priority for foreign policy, maybe we could direct our
resources in other directions," said Armine Bageyan, 23, whose
great-grandfather was from Van, Turkey.
It sounds eminently practical, if culturally unsatisfying. Every gain
for Armenia on the genocide recognition front sets back its effort to
convince Turkey to open its border, and impoverished Armenia -- at war
with one neighbor, Azerbaijan, and with poor transportation links to
Georgia and Iran -- needs thriving Turkey for its economic development.
100 years ago
The story of the deportations and massacres is still two stories.
For Armenians, it followed decades of discrimination and mistreatment
as a Christian minority in the Muslim Ottoman Empire. There were
severe clashes in 1895 and 1896 that left tens of thousands dead.
Then, in the Armenian telling, under the cover of war, the Ottomans
developed and executed a plan to kill all Armenians.
For Turks, it's the story of the Ottoman Empire in the throes of
collapse, with all the major European powers trying to seize
territory, among them Russia, which supported an armed Armenian revolt
in exchange for backing Russia's territorial ambitions. Modern Turkish
counts understate the full extent of the deaths that took place when,
as the semiofficial Anadolu news agency described it Tuesday, "the
Ottoman Empire relocated Armenians in eastern Anatolia following the
revolts, and there were Armenian casualties during the relocation
process."
It added that Turkey had "officially refuted" Armenian allegations on
the basis that "although Armenians died during the relocations, many
Turks also lost their lives in attacks carried out by Armenian gangs
in Anatolia."
The vast understatement may be what Pope Francis had in mind when he
said "concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep
bleeding without bandaging it."
April 24 was the day in 1915 when the Turkish government ordered the
arrests of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, politicians,
journalists and leaders of anti-government groups in Istanbul and the
arrest of anyone connected with the two Armenian revolutionary
parties, the Dashnaks and Hunchaks.
Of the 250 or so arrested and sent to prisons in Konya, southern
Anatolia, about half survived, according to historian Ara Sarafian,
British-Armenian director of the Gomidas Institute in London, an
independent institute that focuses on Armenian history.
The first order to deport Armenians came a month later. Asserting that
Armenians had "made common cause with the enemy," "attacked the
military forces within the country, the innocent population and the
Ottoman cities and towns, killing and plundering," it ordered their
relocation from Anatolia to Aleppo in what's now Syria and as far away
as Mosul, in what's now Iraq.
Transportation was not provided, and for the most part there were no
railroads. The Armenians, unarmed, would have to travel on foot -- as
much as 360 miles in the hot summer sun. There were arrests and
massacres of the men in their villages, and along the way, attacks by
Kurdish or Circassian groups. Their villages were then destroyed. "We
can name 2,000 to 2,500 villages that ceased to exist," Sarafian said.
French-Armenian historian Raymond Kevorkian estimated in his book "The
Armenian Genocide" that of the 1.9 million Armenians living in the
Ottoman Empire on the eve of World War I, based on records of the
Armenian church, Turkish authorities deported 1.69 million in 1915.
But only 880,000 arrived in Syria by that autumn, meaning that 800,000
were "liquidated" in the first wave of the deportations. Some 300,000
others were able to flee or weren't deported.
But this wasn't the end of the road, for a very high proportion of
those who made it to the Aleppo region were deported again in the
course of 1916 and 1917, to Deir el Zour in the east Syrian desert. In
1916, foreign consul reports described Deir el Zour as an Armenian
town; it's now held by the Islamic State. By 1917, Talaat Pasha, the
minister of the interior who ordered the deportations, prepared a
report that showed only 6,800 had survived in the entire region.
Historians estimate that 300,000 to 500,000 of those who survived the
deportations to northern Syria died in the following year, Sarafian
said. Thus more than 1 million Armenians died in the deportation or in
massacres.
Although documents haven't surfaced showing that the deaths were
ordered, there's ample evidence that the central authorities monitored
the movements and location of the deportees and ordered them to keep
moving. Sarafian said he'd found in the Ottoman archives many
telegrams sent by Talaat Pasha asking for a head count of Armenians in
each location. The responses weren't always available.
Sarafian said many massacres were organized at the local level. The
main ones in Diyarbakir, for example, were carried out by tribal
groups at the instigation of the governor. On one occasion, the
governor sent 600 deportees under armed guard to a tribal group, which
then executed them. Later, the governor executed the tribal leader.
Much of this history is now accessible in Turkey in books and
publications, and newspapers regularly carry articles about the debate
over genocide in 1915. But there's a long way to go.
Turkey today
In a remarkable statement a year ago, then-Prime Minister Erdogan
deplored the "inhumane consequences" of the deportations and offered
"our condolences" to the grandchildren of the Armenians who lost their
lives. But he stopped short of accepting governmental responsibility.
Still, the United States welcomed the statement as "historic."
President Barack Obama called for a "full, frank and just
acknowledgment" of the facts. But settling the facts seems an unlikely
prospect.
At issue, from a Turkish perspective, is not just the deaths but also
whether the Armenians had revolted in concert with Russia.
For example, Turkish histories note that Armenians in the eastern
Turkish city of Van staged an uprising starting in April 1915,
following Russia's defeat of a Turkish force in the Caucasus. Armenian
revolutionaries expelled Muslims from the city, destroyed outlying
Muslim villages, killed thousands of civilians and burned government
buildings in Van. The Turkish histories say the uprising was
encouraged by Russia, and that in mid-May, Armenian rebels gave the
keys to the city to Russian commanders.
Vaher Ter Petrosian, a historian at the American University of
Armenia, called Van a rare case in which "self-organization" had
helped the lives of many Armenians. "All the great revolutionary
leaders of Armenia had their roots in Van," he said.
Yehuda Bauer, an Israeli scholar of genocide who's an advocate of
Armenian genocide recognition, said that when Turkish troops
reoccupied the town, they murdered every Armenian they could find.
Suren Manukyan, the deputy director of the Armenian Genocide Museum,
located on a hill in Yerevan, wouldn't say how the museum would deal
with the story of Van when it reopens Friday after extensive
renovations. "How do museums deal with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising?" he
asked. For Armenians, Van "was a resistance. If someone tried to
exterminate your family, of course you would organize resistance. For
me Van is heroic self-defense."
http://www.fresnobee.com/2015/04/18/4483927_100-years-later-world-debates.html?rh=1
From: Baghdasarian
April 18 2015
100 years later, Armenian genocide still not universally accepted
By Roy Gutman
YEREVAN, Armenia -- * More than 1 million Armenians died starting in
1915 after an Ottoman Empire-ordered deportation.
* Turkey says history not clear and that in any case Armenians bear
some of the blame.
* Support beginning to mount for calling it a genocide.
In the swank shops and tidy cafés that line the new pedestrian zone in
Armenia's capital, there's barely a hint that nearly everyone here is
the descendent of a generation that escaped with their lives in a
harrowing flight from Ottoman Turkey in the midst of World War I.
On the eve of the centennial commemoration of what Armenians call Meds
Yeghern, or "the great calamity," posters featuring a violet
forget-me-not and a slogan, "We remember and we demand," dot Yerevan.
The symbol hasn't caught on, even in government offices.
Yet Armenia, and the slaughter, is at the center of world attention as
the April 24 anniversary nears.
French tenor Charles Aznavour, widely hailed as France's Sinatra, both
of whose parents were of Armenian descent, will be here, as will
French President Francois Hollande and Russian President Vladimir
Putin. Pope Francis, who many had hoped would attend, sent a message
assuring his "closeness" when the Armenian Apostolic Church on April
23 canonizes as a group the "martyrs" of 1915. Thousands of members of
the Armenian disapora are expected to travel here; Kim Kardashian,
arguably the most famous of American Armenians, already has come and
gone, with her husband, Kanye West.
It's a heady time for this small, landlocked state in the south
Caucasus, one of the nations that emerged from the collapse of the
Soviet Union a generation ago and yet remains largely isolated.
Even the event for which it's best remembered, the "immense and
senseless slaughter" that's "widely considered the first genocide of
the 20th century," in the recent words of Pope Francis, remains
controversial, its details contested, its origins and causes angrily
debated.
The pontiff's words at a papal Mass in the Armenian rite to
commemorate the centennial of the atrocities, and his admonition to
modern-day Turkey not to deny the "evil," provoked a sharp response
from Ankara, which recalled its ambassador from the Vatican.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the pope's statement
as "nonsense." He pointed out that historians have yet to reach a
conclusion on what took place. "I would like to warn the honorable
pope not to make such a mistake again," he said.
Such talk from Turkey has for years prevented broad acceptance that
what happened in 1915 was genocide. Only 20 countries have accepted
that definition for the Armenian events, and they don't include the
U.S., Britain, Germany or Israel, though the tide may be turning: The
European Parliament approved a resolution recognizing genocide a few
days ago, but U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently called the
1915 events "an atrocity crime."
Leaders of Armenia see the pope's statement as a major victory.
"Calling things by their rightful name cannot but have a strong
impact," said President Serzh Sargsyan. Added Foreign Minister Edward
Nalbandian, the pontiff's words "show that Turkey and the
international community are talking in different languages."
Lost in the noise was the pope's call for Armenia and Turkey to take
up the path of reconciliation again. "Despite conflicts and tensions,
Armenians and Turks have lived long periods of peaceful coexistence in
the past, and even in the midst of violence, they have experienced
times of solidarity and mutual help," he said.
Reconciliation seems unlikely in the short term, however, not least
because both nations have been unable to come to a common
understanding of what happened when Armenians were forcibly relocated
from what's now Turkey during World War I. Indisputably, hundreds of
thousands died. Armenians claim that's what the Ottoman Empire
intended. Turkey says that's not clear and that in any case Armenians
bear some of the blame.
Today's Armenia
In Armenia, nearly every family was affected by the deportations, and
many are convinced that the killings and deaths were premeditated.
At the ultra-modern hilltop campus of the American University of
Armenia, which is affiliated with the University of California, most
students in a course on genocide defended the government drive for
international genocide recognition.
"The genocide issue is what unites all Armenians in the world," said
Areg Badalyan, 23, one of whose grandfathers was from Mus, in eastern
Turkey. He said Turkish recognition of Armenian genocide should be the
country's first priority.
Marianna Javakhyan, 22, whose great-grandfather fled Kharpert, now
known as Elazig, agreed that demanding genocide recognition was "very
important for our national identity, for keeping the whole nation
together, for one's dignity."
Still, in underdeveloped Armenia, there are those who suggest the
country should move on. "If we did not have the recognition of
genocide as a priority for foreign policy, maybe we could direct our
resources in other directions," said Armine Bageyan, 23, whose
great-grandfather was from Van, Turkey.
It sounds eminently practical, if culturally unsatisfying. Every gain
for Armenia on the genocide recognition front sets back its effort to
convince Turkey to open its border, and impoverished Armenia -- at war
with one neighbor, Azerbaijan, and with poor transportation links to
Georgia and Iran -- needs thriving Turkey for its economic development.
100 years ago
The story of the deportations and massacres is still two stories.
For Armenians, it followed decades of discrimination and mistreatment
as a Christian minority in the Muslim Ottoman Empire. There were
severe clashes in 1895 and 1896 that left tens of thousands dead.
Then, in the Armenian telling, under the cover of war, the Ottomans
developed and executed a plan to kill all Armenians.
For Turks, it's the story of the Ottoman Empire in the throes of
collapse, with all the major European powers trying to seize
territory, among them Russia, which supported an armed Armenian revolt
in exchange for backing Russia's territorial ambitions. Modern Turkish
counts understate the full extent of the deaths that took place when,
as the semiofficial Anadolu news agency described it Tuesday, "the
Ottoman Empire relocated Armenians in eastern Anatolia following the
revolts, and there were Armenian casualties during the relocation
process."
It added that Turkey had "officially refuted" Armenian allegations on
the basis that "although Armenians died during the relocations, many
Turks also lost their lives in attacks carried out by Armenian gangs
in Anatolia."
The vast understatement may be what Pope Francis had in mind when he
said "concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep
bleeding without bandaging it."
April 24 was the day in 1915 when the Turkish government ordered the
arrests of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, politicians,
journalists and leaders of anti-government groups in Istanbul and the
arrest of anyone connected with the two Armenian revolutionary
parties, the Dashnaks and Hunchaks.
Of the 250 or so arrested and sent to prisons in Konya, southern
Anatolia, about half survived, according to historian Ara Sarafian,
British-Armenian director of the Gomidas Institute in London, an
independent institute that focuses on Armenian history.
The first order to deport Armenians came a month later. Asserting that
Armenians had "made common cause with the enemy," "attacked the
military forces within the country, the innocent population and the
Ottoman cities and towns, killing and plundering," it ordered their
relocation from Anatolia to Aleppo in what's now Syria and as far away
as Mosul, in what's now Iraq.
Transportation was not provided, and for the most part there were no
railroads. The Armenians, unarmed, would have to travel on foot -- as
much as 360 miles in the hot summer sun. There were arrests and
massacres of the men in their villages, and along the way, attacks by
Kurdish or Circassian groups. Their villages were then destroyed. "We
can name 2,000 to 2,500 villages that ceased to exist," Sarafian said.
French-Armenian historian Raymond Kevorkian estimated in his book "The
Armenian Genocide" that of the 1.9 million Armenians living in the
Ottoman Empire on the eve of World War I, based on records of the
Armenian church, Turkish authorities deported 1.69 million in 1915.
But only 880,000 arrived in Syria by that autumn, meaning that 800,000
were "liquidated" in the first wave of the deportations. Some 300,000
others were able to flee or weren't deported.
But this wasn't the end of the road, for a very high proportion of
those who made it to the Aleppo region were deported again in the
course of 1916 and 1917, to Deir el Zour in the east Syrian desert. In
1916, foreign consul reports described Deir el Zour as an Armenian
town; it's now held by the Islamic State. By 1917, Talaat Pasha, the
minister of the interior who ordered the deportations, prepared a
report that showed only 6,800 had survived in the entire region.
Historians estimate that 300,000 to 500,000 of those who survived the
deportations to northern Syria died in the following year, Sarafian
said. Thus more than 1 million Armenians died in the deportation or in
massacres.
Although documents haven't surfaced showing that the deaths were
ordered, there's ample evidence that the central authorities monitored
the movements and location of the deportees and ordered them to keep
moving. Sarafian said he'd found in the Ottoman archives many
telegrams sent by Talaat Pasha asking for a head count of Armenians in
each location. The responses weren't always available.
Sarafian said many massacres were organized at the local level. The
main ones in Diyarbakir, for example, were carried out by tribal
groups at the instigation of the governor. On one occasion, the
governor sent 600 deportees under armed guard to a tribal group, which
then executed them. Later, the governor executed the tribal leader.
Much of this history is now accessible in Turkey in books and
publications, and newspapers regularly carry articles about the debate
over genocide in 1915. But there's a long way to go.
Turkey today
In a remarkable statement a year ago, then-Prime Minister Erdogan
deplored the "inhumane consequences" of the deportations and offered
"our condolences" to the grandchildren of the Armenians who lost their
lives. But he stopped short of accepting governmental responsibility.
Still, the United States welcomed the statement as "historic."
President Barack Obama called for a "full, frank and just
acknowledgment" of the facts. But settling the facts seems an unlikely
prospect.
At issue, from a Turkish perspective, is not just the deaths but also
whether the Armenians had revolted in concert with Russia.
For example, Turkish histories note that Armenians in the eastern
Turkish city of Van staged an uprising starting in April 1915,
following Russia's defeat of a Turkish force in the Caucasus. Armenian
revolutionaries expelled Muslims from the city, destroyed outlying
Muslim villages, killed thousands of civilians and burned government
buildings in Van. The Turkish histories say the uprising was
encouraged by Russia, and that in mid-May, Armenian rebels gave the
keys to the city to Russian commanders.
Vaher Ter Petrosian, a historian at the American University of
Armenia, called Van a rare case in which "self-organization" had
helped the lives of many Armenians. "All the great revolutionary
leaders of Armenia had their roots in Van," he said.
Yehuda Bauer, an Israeli scholar of genocide who's an advocate of
Armenian genocide recognition, said that when Turkish troops
reoccupied the town, they murdered every Armenian they could find.
Suren Manukyan, the deputy director of the Armenian Genocide Museum,
located on a hill in Yerevan, wouldn't say how the museum would deal
with the story of Van when it reopens Friday after extensive
renovations. "How do museums deal with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising?" he
asked. For Armenians, Van "was a resistance. If someone tried to
exterminate your family, of course you would organize resistance. For
me Van is heroic self-defense."
http://www.fresnobee.com/2015/04/18/4483927_100-years-later-world-debates.html?rh=1
From: Baghdasarian