Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Time for U.S. to take stand against Armenian genocide
by Rachel Kaprielian and Peter Koutoujian; The Boston Herald - December 3, 2000 Sunday ALL EDITIONS
Posted: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 07:45 pm CST

Each April, Armenian-Americans have gathered in the Massachusetts State House to honor the survivors and the victims who suffered and died under what the United Nations has called the first campaign of modern-day genocide.

In the years 1915-1923, the Ottoman Turkish government systematically rounded up and exterminated more than a million Armenians and exiled another million from their ancestral homeland.

We remember this not just as Armenians, but as defenders of human rights. The lessons of the Armenian genocide have been learned throughout the 20th century, from Stalin's deadly purges, to the Nazi Holocaust, to Pol Pot's destruction in Cambodia and even to today, in the images we saw from Kosovo. The message is clear: When the crime of genocide is not confronted, the wounds of the victim and their progeny do not have a chance to heal. We cannot allow a century that began in genocide to end in genocide.

The Armenian genocide is a subject not open to academic interpretation. It is a historical certainty backed up by tens of thousands of documents and many of them Turkish - from Turkey's World War I allies, from the U.S. archives and from Turkey's own military tribunals. There exists photographic evidence, official reports of diplomats and missionaries, the testimony of survivors and eight decades of historical scholarship. Perhaps most compelling were the words of the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morganthau, who confirmed the open and systematic "death warrant to a whole race" employed by the Ottoman Turkish authorities against the Armenian minority.

So why is this important now - in a new millennium when the United States calls upon modern-day Turkey as a strategic ally? Because the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, and we should be the first to decry an atrocity such as genocide anywhere. We should be the shining example of democracy and a nation under law, such that fledgling democracies can flourish under our world leadership.

Recently, Amnesty International has focused on Turkey for its inhumane punishment and civil procedure. Turkey should not be allowed to exploit its role as a U.S. ally to get away with gross human rights violations and genocide denial.

Moreover, if Turkey aims to become a legitimate member of the European Union, how can the world be sure of its commitment to democracy if they will suppress it within its own borders? Part of securing the world's future should be in acknowledging, if at times condemning, the past. In the months immediately following the end of World War II, the new world leaders first knew that perpetrators of atrocious war crimes needed to be brought to justice. The Nuremberg trials were critical to achieving closure after the mass murder of 6 million Jews. It is that sort of closure that Armenians have sought for nearly a century.

Today Armenia is a proud, independent and struggling nation. Disturbingly, Turkey and Azerbaijan continue to employ crippling economic blockades, and despite repeated offers from Armenia to normalize relations, Turkey has defiantly refused. It is critical that the United States as a major world leader retain and expand foreign aid to Armenia to ensure its long-term self-sufficiency and democracy, and denounce and restrict support to nations who seek to destroy it. Acknowledging the tragedy of the Armenian genocide is the first step along that road.

Rachel Kaprielian (D-Watertown) Peter J. Koutoujian (D-Newton) serve in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. As You Were Saying is a regular feature of the Boston Herald. We invite our readers to contribute pieces of no more than 600 words. Mail contributions to the Boston Herald, P.O. Box 2096, Boston, MA 02106-2096, fax them to (617) 542-1315 or e-mail to oped@bostonherald.com. All submissions are subject to editing and become the property of the Boston Herald.

Related Information...

Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News Archives