Gwynne Dyer’s ‘Armenia: the end of the debate’ (Cyprus Mail, October 20) was a very flawed assessment.
He ignores that on May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers (France, Great Britain and Russia) warned the Ottoman leaders that they would be called to account for “crimes against humanity”. On July 16, 1915, US Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau described what was happening there as “race extermination”.
He ignores that Raphael Lemkin, the legal scholar who coined the term “genocide” in 1944, describing how he became involved in its study, wrote:
“…I understood that the function of memory is not only to register past events, but to stimulate human conscience. Soon contemporary examples of Genocide followed, such as the slaughter of the Armenians.”
He ignores The International Association of Genocide Scholars’ declarations affirming the Genocide, which, as late as October 2009, stated, referring to the accords between Turkey and Armenia,
“Acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide must be the starting point of any “impartial historical commission,” not one of its possible conclusions. The world would not accept an inquiry into the truth of the Nazi Holocaust, or the extermination of the Tutsi in Rwanda, and nor can it do so with the genocide of the Armenians.”
He ignores that the monitors at the Protocols’ signing, Russia, France, the European Union and Switzerland (the mediator in the negotiations) have all officially acknowledged the Armenian Genocide. As to the US, whose official diplomatic archive is one of the richest historical sources on the Armenian Genocide, President Ronald Reagan called it genocide in 1981, and Barack Obama stated in 2008, “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that President.”
While in Turkey in April of this year, in response to a question about the genocide and his stance on it, he reaffirmed, “Well, my views are on the record and I have not changed those views.”
He ignores that as recently as October 21, 2009, within 10 days of signing the accord, the statement made by Turkish MP Selahattin Demirtash during the debate in the Turkish parliament, “…the time has come for us to talk about the suffering of the Armenian people.
“A hundred years ago, the Ittihat Terakki party wanted to rid the country off of its non-Muslim citizens, especially the Armenians. During the war years, certain security measures could have been justified, however the forced marches and the killings of these people are totally unacceptable.”
Does Dyer consider all of these people, who insist it was genocide, to be Diaspora Armenians?
While the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey is about two countries pursuing their respective national interests, it’s not the end of the debate on the Armenian genocide.
Like all cases of genocide, the Armenian Genocide is part of human history, which no country’s “grown-ups,” have the right or power to barter, deny or forget for “practical considerations,” including Turkey, Armenia, and countries which have yet to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.
K.M. Greg Sarkissian
Canada
