FOUR YEARS LATER: The Assassination of a Journalist in Turkey

January 19, 2007. Istanbul, Turkey. At this place and on this date, a middle-aged man in a brown suit was shot dead at point-blank range. The three gunshots that shattered the cool air that day sent shockwaves through his country and the world at large.

Recollecting Rwanda: A Lesson in Forgiveness and Respect

I arrived in Kigali, Rwanda on August 9, 2010: election day. The entire country was in the midst of celebrating their opportunity to re-elect Paul Kagame, a national hero since since leading the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to end the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Kigali–the nation’s capital–was covered in streamers that matched the Rwandan flag and every voting center erupted with music, laughter and dance. Shortly after settling into my home in the Kabeza neighborhood, I was invited into the playground of a nearby school-turned-polling-place by a middle-aged man who had just submitted his ballot.

Kurds and Armenians: Finding Common Cause

On September 2, 1938 an editorial appeared in the Hairenik Weekly condemning the Turkish government’s brutal crackdown of its Kurdish population in Dersim. The editorial drew the following link between the common struggle for freedom waged by both Armenians and Kurds:

The Kurdish Struggle Against Genocide

Below are some of the voices of Kurds themselves, as they struggle to bring the world’s attention to their plight and draw parallels between their suffering and that of the Armenians.

Kurdish Accounts of the Armenian Genocide

The following interviews with Kurds in Anatolia were conducted for the documentary film “The Armenian Genocide,” directed and produced by Emmy Award-winning, producer Andrew Goldberg of Two Cats Productions (www.twocatstv.com).

The documentary featured short segments of some of these interviews and excerpts later appeared for the first time in their entirety in the Armenian Weekly (www.armenianweekly.com).

Given the rare insight these interviews offer into the perspective of present day Kurds living on the lands Armenians were murdered and forced from during the Genocide, the Haytoug editorial team felt it was important to reprint for our readers segments of the feature as originally published in the Armenian Weekly.

In Memory of the Armenian Genocide of 1915: A Kurdish Perspective

Ottoman Turks led the way into the twentieth century by committing the first act of genocide. Their example was followed by many more, such as the Holocaust in Germany, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo and the notorious Anfal campaign by Saddam Hussein in Iraqi-Kurdistan.

The Dark Side of Your Sweet Treat

We have all seen innocent looking chocolate commercials with adorable kids laughing and having a good time while enjoying their chocolate bars. Some brands are represented by bunnies, some with oversized M&Ms, and some are so famous that they are known worldwide brands such as Hershey, Mars and Nestle. Although they are competing brands they have a couple of things in common: they’re most definitely delicious, and they have one dark secret: CHILD LABOR.

Reversing the Cycle: Bringing Genocide to Justice

A snapshot of genocidal crimes brought to justice.

Kosovo Today, Karabakh Tomorrow?

February 2008 was an important month in both the Balkans and the Caucasus. On February 17, Kosovo officially declared its independence from Serbia. Two days later, overshadowed by that news, Armenia held its presidential election, which was followed almost immediately by mass protests, street violence, political arrests and a nationally-declared state of emergency.

Turkey and Sudan: A Genocidal Tandem

While other countries in the world have criticized and increasingly distanced themselves from the Sudanese regime and its atrocities in Darfur, the Turkish government has been going out of its way to forge ever-closer ties with its genocidal apprentice in Khartoum.