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Wales' Armenians: Still Campaigning For Recognition Of The Genocide

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  • Wales' Armenians: Still Campaigning For Recognition Of The Genocide

    WALES' ARMENIANS: STILL CAMPAIGNING FOR RECOGNITION OF THE GENOCIDE SUFFERED BY THEIR PEOPLE IN 1915

    walesonline.co.uk
    February 3, 2015 Tuesday 8:20 PM GMT

    By Martin Shipton

    Genocide is a highly emotive term - so much so that when a cross
    commemorating the Armenian "genocide" was placed outside the Temple
    of Peace in Cardiff a few years ago, it was soon smashed up.

    In Turkey it remains a crime to use the term when describing the
    events of 1915 that saw nearly 1.5m ethnic Armenians murdered.

    Among many others, the Turkish Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan
    Pamuk has faced prosecution after telling his country to admit to
    what happened. But so far there is little sign of Turkey doing so.

    In Wales, where there is a small but thriving Armenian community,
    preparations are under way to mark the centenary. But community members
    are disappointed by the lack of support shown for their cause by the
    Welsh Government.

    Historians have described what happened in Turkey 100 years ago as
    the first full-scale ethnic cleansing of the 20th century.

    Armenians were uprooted from their homes by the thousand, deported
    to remote locations within Turkey and murdered.

    The political scientist RJ Rummell has written: "Turkish leaders
    decided to exterminate every Armenian in the country, whether a
    front-line soldier or pregnant woman, famous professor or high bishop,
    important businessman or ardent patriot. All two million of them.

    Rummell has used the term "democide" to describe "the murder of any
    person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide
    and mass murder".

    Of the Armenian massacres he wrote: "Democide had preceded the Young
    Turks' rule and with their collapse at the end of World War I, the
    successor Nationalist government carried out its own democide against
    the Greeks and remaining or returning Armenians. From 1900 to 1923,
    various Turkish regimes killed from 3.5 million to over 4.3m Armenians,
    Greeks, Nestorians and other Christians."

    Based on all the available evidence, Rummell estimates that the
    Turks murdered between 300,000 and 2,686,000 Armenians - probably
    1.4 million.

    A report in the New York Times from November 1915 reported the
    testimony of an American committee set up to investigate the
    atrocities. It quotes an unnamed official representative of the
    committee who went to a camp occupied by displaced Armenians saying:
    "I have visited their encampment and a more pitiable site cannot be
    imagined. They are, almost without exception, ragged, hungry and sick.

    This is not surprising in view of the fact that they have been on the
    road for nearly two months, with no change of clothing, no chance to
    bathe, no shelter and little to eat. "I watched them one time when
    their food was brought. Wild animals could not be worse. They rushed
    upon the guards who carried the food and the guards beat them back
    with clubs hitting hard enough to kill sometimes."

    "To watch them one could hardly believe these people to be human
    beings. As one walks through the camp, mothers offer their children
    and beg you to take them. In fact, the Turks have been taking their
    choice of these children and girls for slaves or worse. There are very
    few men among them, as most of the men were killed on the road. Women
    and children were also killed. The entire movement seems to be the
    most thoroughly organised and effective massacre this country has
    ever seen."

    Many relatives of Cardiff businessman John Torosyan, a leading
    member of the Welsh Armenian community, were murdered, including his
    grandfather's twin.

    He said: "More than 75% of Armenians were killed. At the time Britain
    was at the forefront of calls for justice for this genocide. The word
    'genocide' was in fact coined by a Jew, Raphael Lemkin, with the
    Armenians uppermost in his mind.

    "One hundred years on and how things have changed. The UK Government's
    position is clear - they do not want to use the word genocide because
    it would upset Turkey, a Nato ally.

    "Nevertheless, 22 other countries have accepted the Armenian genocide
    as fact, some of them being in Nato with no diplomatic or trade issues
    with Turkey.

    "Neither Israel nor Jewry in the UK including such commendable
    organisations as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust acknowledge the
    Armenian genocide." Progress in Wales towards getting official
    recognition of the genocide

    Mr Torosyan said there had been progress in Wales towards getting
    official recognition of the genocide: in 2004 a vote was taken by
    Gwynedd council to recognise it, and last year a plaque was erected
    at the council's offices in Caernarfon.

    He said: "Prior to 2006 the Armenian community participated in the
    Holocaust Memorial Day events in Cardiff. It was then a hit and miss
    affair, where we were remembered in some years but not in others. The
    last even we participated in actively was in 2010.

    "In 2007 the National Assembly gave us some land at the Temple of
    Peace and allowed the word 'genocide' to be used on the memorial. The
    then Presiding Officer conducted the opening ceremony.

    "We had two statements of opinion where a majority of AMs accepted the
    reality of the Armenian genocide. The Church in Wales voted unanimously
    to recognise April 24 as Armenian Genocide Day and special prayers
    were written in Welsh and English.

    "We currently have three memorials in Wales - at the Temple of Peace,
    in Caernarfon and at St Deiniol's Church at Hawarden, Flintshire,
    where Armenians gave a silver chalice, a silver Bible and a stained
    glass window in recognition of help given by Britain at the time of
    the first Armenian genocide in 1896.

    "Soon we will be erecting a statue at St Davids Cathedral, the
    spiritual centre of Welsh Christianity.

    "Unfortunately we feel that with the exception of the Church in Wales,
    the country's official institutions are now completely sidestepping
    the Armenians' cause. The Welsh Government deems it a foreign policy
    matter and not within the remit of a devolved administration. This
    is a very convenient and easy solution, but it ignores the Armenian
    community in Wales.

    "We wrote to the First Minister last year, but only received an
    acknowledgement. Our appeals for nine months that Holocaust Memorial
    Day events this year should just mention the Armenian victims fell
    on deaf ears. Unfortunately Cardiff is toeing the Foreign Office line."

    Geoffrey Robertson QC, one of Britain's most distinguished human
    rights lawyers, wrote a lengthy legal opinion six years ago condemning
    the UK Government's unwillingness to describe the events of 1915 as
    genocide. His conclusion said: "The truth is that throughout the life
    of the present Labour Government and - so the Foreign and Commonwealth
    Office (FCO) admits - throughout previous governments, there has been
    no proper or candid appraisal of 1915 events condemned by Her Majesty's
    Government (HMG) at the time and immediately afterwards in terms that
    anticipate the modern definition of genocide and which were referred
    to by the drafters of the Genocide Convention as a prime example of the
    kind of atrocity that would be covered by this new international crime.

    "HMG has consistently ... wrongly maintained both that the decision
    is one for historians and that historians are divided on the subject,
    ignoring the fact that the decision is one for legal judgement and
    no reputable historian could possibly deny the central facts of the
    deportations and the racial and religious motivations behind the
    deaths of a significant proportion of the Armenian people."

    Mr Robertson states that the "inevitable" conclusion is that the
    treatment of the Armenians in 1915 answers to the description of
    genocide. "Foreign policy is a matter reserved to the UK Government"

    A Welsh Government spokesman said First Minister Carwyn Jones had
    written a letter to Mr Torosyan dated September 1 last year, which
    said: "I am writing in response to your letter of July 17 on behalf
    of the Armenian community in Wales.

    "Foreign policy is a matter reserved to the UK Government and one for
    which the Welsh Government has no remit. However, the UK Government
    has acknowledged the terrible suffering that was inflicted on the
    Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century. The
    crimes committed were rightly and robustly condemned by the British
    Government of the day.

    "While we remember the victims of the past, our priority today must
    be to promote reconciliation between the peoples and governments of
    Turkey and Armenia."

    The spokesman issued a slightly amended statement to us, which said:
    "Foreign policy is not devolved, but we condemn any persecution and
    mass loss of life.

    "The UK Government has acknowledged the terrible suffering that
    was inflicted on the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire in the
    early 20th century and the crimes committed were rightly and robustly
    condemned by the British Government of the day.

    "The First Minister has paid homage to Armenian victims during
    Holocaust Memorial commemorations in the past and there are a number
    of memorials in place around Wales including one in the capital. But
    while we remember the victims of the past, the priority today must
    be to promote reconciliation between the peoples and governments of
    Turkey and Armenia."

    http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/wales-armenians-still-campaigning-recognition-8574903

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