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N.Y. Times
Deals a Knock Out Punch to Turkish Denialism
By
Harut Sassounian Publisher,
The California Courier The
Turkish Ambassador to the United Nations must have been very proud of
himself when he succeeded in temporarily shutting down a U.N. photo
exhibition on the Rwandan Genocide, after discovering a single sentence
that read: "one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey." Little
did Ambassador Baki Ilkin and his government know that the attempt to
eliminate a simple reference which did not even describe the Armenian mass
killings as genocide and may have been overlooked by most exhibit
visitors, would blow up in their faces in a very big and unexpected way. As
stated previously in this column, Turkey, unintentionally, is the greatest
publicist of the Armenian Genocide by its obsessive objections to its
mention by anyone, anywhere. The
Turkish complaint against the mention of Armenian "murders" at
the Rwandan exhibition was reported by the Associated Press. The lengthy
wire story, which extensively described the facts of the Armenian
Genocide, was printed by newspapers around the globe. While trying to get
rid of one harmless line that most people would not even have noticed,
Turkish officials managed to get several paragraphs about the Armenian
Genocide published in hundreds of newspapers around the world! As the AP
reported: "Historians estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were
killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely
viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th
century." In
one thoughtless knee-jerk reaction, the Turkish government managed to
reconfirm its repressive image among millions of newspaper readers,
antagonize the Rwandan government, and upset the U.K.-based Aegis Trust,
which had helped organize the exhibition. It also drew the ire of usually
mild-mannered Armenian government officials. Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian blasted Ankara by stating: "It is not enough that the
Government of Turkey thinks it can hide its history from its own people.
Now, they have taken their campaign of cover-up and distortion to such
lengths that they will prevent an exhibition on Genocide entitled 'Lessons
of Rwanda.'" The
New York Times also covered the Turkish objection and the controversy
regarding the cancellation of the U.N. exhibition and, just like the AP,
made direct references to the Armenian Genocide. However,
the biggest surprise was yet to come. On April 13, The N.Y. Times
published a hard-hitting editorial that blasted Turkey's obsessive efforts
to deny the Armenian Genocide. It dealt such a devastating blow that
Turkish denialism may never recover from it. The
editorial, under the headline, "Turkey and the U.N.'s Cover-Up,"
stated in part: "More than 90 years ago, when Turkey was still part
of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish nationalists launched an extermination
campaign there that killed 1.5 million Armenians. It was the 20th
century's first genocide.. Turkey has long tried to deny the Armenian
genocide. Even in the modern-day Turkish republic, which was not a party
to the killings, using the word genocide in reference to these events is
prosecuted as a serious crime. It's odd that Turkey's leaders have not
figured out by now that every time they try to censor discussion of the
Armenian genocide, they only bring wider attention to the subject and link
today's democratic Turkey with the now distant crime." The
same editorial appeared in the International Herald Tribune, under an even
harsher headline: "Abetting Turkish Denial at the United
Nations." While
U.N. officials are mulling over a face-saving way of resuming the photo
exhibition, Rwandans, Armenians and all those who cherish the truth should
look into the questionable role played by U.N. associate spokesman Farhan
Haq, in this whole episode. He was quoted by AP last week as saying that
the photo exhibit was taken down because it was not properly reviewed. Mr.
Haq has also been repeatedly quoted by Turkish denialists as having
allegedly stated back in 2000 that "the United Nations has not
approved or endorsed a report labeling the Armenian experience as
Genocide." Last week, he was quoted by AP as saying: "The U.N.
hasn't expressed any position on incidents that took place long before the
United Nations was established." Both
of those statements are absolutely untrue, as the U.N. has taken a
position on the Jewish Holocaust which, just like the Armenian Genocide,
occurred before the establishment of the U.N. in 1945. Furthermore,
there were several extensive discussions of the Armenian Genocide at the
U.N. for more than a dozen years, which culminated in a report adopted in
1985 by the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities. Earlier
in the week, this writer spoke to Mr. Haq and asked him if he was aware
that U.N human rights panels had dealt with the issue of the Armenian
Genocide. He said he knew that various U.N. human rights bodies had
discussed this issue and adopted reports which referred to the Armenian
Genocide. Regarding the statement that Turkish denialists constantly
attribute to him, he said he had simply stated that there has never been a
U.N. General Assembly resolution on the Armenian Genocide. Armenia's
Ambassador at the United Nations may now want to contact the U.N.
Secretary General's office and ask him to issue a formal statement
declaring that the U.N. human rights bodies had indeed dealt with the
Armenian Genocide and adopted a report in 1985 properly calling it a
genocide. There
is no question that the Rwandan exhibition will be reopened at the U.N.
along with the reference to the Armenian Genocide. By taking it down
temporarily to get rid of that reference, Turkish officials have once
again inadvertently publicized the Armenian Genocide to a worldwide
audience, much beyond the four walls of the U.N. |