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.

Before looking into the identity of this man and the significance he had in life and in death, it is fitting to take a step back and take a good, long look at the city where he lived and died.  Istanbul can be described as a crossroad between East and West, where the mystic Orient melts smoothly into the hustle and bustle of European urban centres.  It can also been seen as a panicked metropolis caught between two competing identities, a microcosm of issues that plague Turkey at large.  Both visions of this city hold true, and one cannot understand the assassination of Hrant Dink without understanding the society – and the city – where he lived and in which life was taken from him.

Dink, ethnically Armenian, was the editor of Agos, a bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper. When Agos was founded in 1996, many realised that drastic changes needed to be made within Turkey’s politics and society if it was to become a democratic country.  However, he became one of the very few individuals who would put themselves in danger in order to make that dream a reality.

He spoke out bravely about the need for democratisation, respect towards the freedoms of expression, press and assembly, and sought to dispel the strong taboos against discussion of the Armenian Genocide and Turkey’s Kurdish citizens.  For his activism, he was prosecuted under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, an oft-condemned censorship law that grants the Turkish government the legal authority to imprison anyone who “publicly denigrates the Turkish nation, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey”.

As a result of three very public trials, Dink found himself at the receiving end of a large-scale intimidation campaign.  He received death threats (which were ignored by the authorities) and a constant stream of hate clogged his inbox and telephone line.  In his last editorial he wrote, “The judge had made a decision in the name of the ‘Turkish nation’ and had it legally registered that I had ‘denigrated Turkishness.’  I could have coped with anything but this. [...] Those who tried to single me out and weaken me have succeeded.”

Hrant Dink was murdered by Ogun Samast, a 17 year old Turkish youth who had travelled 900 km to kill the journalist.  After his arrest, Samast was photographed posing with a Turkish flag, flanked by two proud-looking policemen.  Four years after the crime, observers of Turkish judicial law note that Samast may be released if the murder trial – already criticised for its slow pace – isn’t wrapped up by 2012.

Insufficient Half-Measures

What has changed since January 2007?  Within the administration, not much at all.  Some notable stories that made headlines are the imprisonment of a 15 year old Kurdish girl who was found guilty of throwing rocks during a political rally, the possible banning of Facebook (YouTube has been blocked since 2007), and the proposed dismantlement of a Turkish-Armenian friendship statue.

For over a century, successive Turkish governments have been using shallow half-measures to appease foreign observers and to feign true democratisation.  Homogenisation of the Anatolian peninsula through suppression of ethnic diversity is not a new state policy.  After most Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians had been eliminated by Ottoman leaders during the 1914-1923 genocide, the new Republic focused its attention upon its Arab and Kurdish citizens, subjecting them to policies of forced assimilation.

Use of the Kurdish language in the public sphere was illegal from 1925 to 1991.  Fortunately, over the past 20 years, some new policies have appeared to give Turkey’s Kurdish minority equal standing with their fellow citizens of Turkish ethnicity.  However, Prof. Amir Hassanpour of the University of Toronto looks beneath the surface: “No one can deny that this is a different Turkey.  There is, for example, Kurdish broadcasting by the government on a limited scale.  One should appreciate that it is now possible for media to be published in Kurdish – it is no longer a crime against the state.  What has not changed, however, are the government’s assimilation policies.  These new ‘rights’ are a way to satisfy the European Union, but to maintain the linguicidal policy.”

According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, although Kurds now have the “right” to their own press, newspapers continue to be shut down and their journalists incarcerated based on fictitious ties to terrorism.  Another such “right” is the legalisation of Kurdish-language education, a development which is handicapped, says Dr. Hassanpour, by three strict preconditions: lessons must be given only on weekends, when kids have little incentive to study; teachers must be approved by the government, ensuring that the state’s nationalist discourse is not challenged; and students must be over 12 years old, ensuring that they are brought up “Turkish” during their key formative years.

Winds of Change

Within Turkish society, the development of a conscious and reflective populace can be seen and has to be encouraged.  During Hrant Dink’s funeral, 100 000 people marched down the streets of Istanbul carrying placards which read “We are all Armenian” and “We are all Hrant Dink.”  His weekly newspaper, it should be noted, was a meagre 12 pages long and had a subscriber base of only 6 000 readers in a country of 70 million.  Yet his words rang loudly against the oppressive taboos of the Turkish government and conservative society.

Before his death, in September 2005, a conference about the Armenian Genocide was held at Bilgi University for the first time ever.  Originally set for May, it had to be rescheduled and relocated after the justice minister made charges of treason against its organisers and the courts attempted to censor the speakers.  Since 2007, similar events have included a celebration of the work of Armenian composer and Genocide victim Gomidas, an exhibition of Armenian architecture, and four separate – though painfully small – Genocide commemoration events in Istanbul.

In recent years, crypto-Armenians have been gradually coming out of hiding and openly acknowledging their Armenian lineage.  One of the most moving examples of this is written about in My Grandmother, a book by lawyer Fethiye Cetin.  She tells of how her grandmother, at the age of 90, reveals to her that she is in fact an Armenian, abducted as a young girl from a deportation caravan in the desert and married off to a Turkish man.  Having received unprecedented popularity, Cetin’s book is now in its 7th edition.

In Dink’s absence, his vision of Turkey continues to be pursued by other outspoken members of Turkish society.  Among them are Ragip Zarakolu and his late wife, who have been taken to court over 40 times for the books they publish; Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk; Hrant’s son, Arat Dink; and Hasan Cemal, grandson of a genocide mastermind who has drawn attention to and denounced the policies of his ancestor.  These intellectuals are slowly overcoming the monolithic taboos that have fragmented Turkish historical identity and are paving the way for a new – and more honest – Turkey.

Reflections

Although Hrant Dink died four years ago, his memory and legacy live on.  Every year following Dink’s assassination, thousands have gathered outside his office.  They stand together not only to commemorate, but also to show the state that they have not forgotten the way in which their government betrayed their fellow Istanbulu.

As we commemorate Hrant’s death every January 19th, we cannot help but look back as we move forward.  There must come a time when instead of immortalising genocidaires by naming streets and erecting statues in their honour, the government of Turkey will choose to celebrate the true heroes of its history: the hundreds of Turks and Kurds who saved Armenians in 1914-1923.

Only through honest introspection can Hrant Dink’s dream be realised: a Turkey which accepts its past and respects the rights of all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity.  In the meantime, we wait with bated breath, wary of when the next gunshot will ring.

“Come, come!” he said. “Please, be with us today. This is a celebration!”

I had never seen anything like this before–not even when U.S. President Barack Obama was being elected. Children danced gleefully as their parents waited in line to vote, each wearing t-shirts with Kagame’s portrait. Upbeat Rwandan pop music piped into the air from massive speakers. Elderly Rwandan men and women sat  under shady trees, energetically discussing the historical moment they were witnessing. Every single person was smiling from ear-to-ear with pride. Had I not already learned of Rwanda’s history, I would have never guessed that a mere 16 years prior to that moment, Rwanda was a living hell devoured by the pitch darkness of a genocide that claimed the lives of nearly one million of its people.

I re-experienced this pattern of revelation over and over again throughout the month I spent in Kigali. Each day, I would encounter a new aspect of Rwandan culture that would leave me in awe; I had never met such openhearted people in my life.  Perfect strangers on the bus would take another passenger’s child to sit on their own lap if there was a shortage of seats, the elderly were looked upon like national treasures, children played freely outside with no fear of kidnapping, women walked side-by-side with men in the evenings with no fear of rape or petty theft, shop owners offered their own cell phones to clients if the power had gone out…and all this in addition to the kindness shown to me as a guest in their country. Each time I observed or experienced such moments, I would immediately go back to the same question: how did these people exist in such harmony, when less than twenty years ago they were at each others throats?

I traveled to Rwanda to teach a month-long photography course to a group of men and women in Kigali who needed vocational skills and didn’t have access to arts education or equipment. Several of my students were orphaned in the genocide, and almost all were old enough to have distinct memories of what happened in 1994. I didn’t learn any of this until a handful of my students took me to the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, though, because there is a general, unspoken consensus amongst Rwandans to actively resist discussion about the genocide; in fact, I was told before my arrival that bringing up the topic of the genocide was considered highly offensive and disrespectful. Until our visit to the Memorial, I had no way of knowing what my students, let alone everyone else in Rwanda, had experienced during and after the genocide unless I read it in a book or on the Internet. I didn’t encounter anything throughout my time in Kigali that referred to the genocide–everything had been suppressed as a means of quickly forgiving one another and moving on, in order to be able to focus on Rwanda’s future and rapid development.

When we were at the Memorial, one of my students finally opened up about losing his entire family in the genocide. He said that it was hard for him to go inside the museum and relive what happened, but that he had no anger in him. He had forgiven the people who killed his siblings and parents and did not harbor hatred towards them.  This ideation was remarkable to me. It was so difficult to reconcile this reality with my frame of reference: my experience in the Armenian diaspora, where any talk of forgiving the Ottoman perpetrators (and their descendants) of the Armenian genocide is practically non-existent.

I learned from an exhibit at the Memorial that many accused killers in the Rwandan genocide have since been released back into society, simply because the families of their victims have forgiven them (as dictated by Gacaca, a tribal-based justice system instituted in the wake of the genocide). As a result, both victims and perpetrators of the genocide are now once again living side by side. Although they are divided by their respective experiences, they are united in thought: that to kill one another is wrong, that the genocide was a bloody lesson in peace and understanding and that the only way for Rwanda to move on and flourish is if each and every Rwandan does their part to move on individually. Of course, this is a double-edged sword: countless survivors of the genocide are now living with severe trauma-related disorders, psychological issues and depression but are actively participating in this repression that will inevitably make their mental conditions worsen. Yet for the people of Rwanda, this seemed to be a worthy sacrifice; to hold back their personal healing for the sake of not tainting the new generation with the disunion, hate and anger that nearly shattered Rwanda just 16 years ago. The result, from what I described at the beginning of this narrative, is a country ruled by peace, love, unity, respect and unadulterated selflessness.

Anahid Yahjian is a 21-year-old student at Occidental College in Los Angeles, where she is studying comparative literature and film theory. She chronicled her experience in Rwanda on her blog, recollectingrwanda.tumblr.com. Her students’ photography will be exhibited alongside her own later this year on the Occidental campus.

Facts about the Rwandan Genocide:

• The Rwandan genocide is officially noted to have started on April 6, 1994 after the assassination of then-president Juvénal Habyarimana; it lasted approximately 10 months and 800,000-1,000,000 people were killed.
• Tensions between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi ethnic groups had been intensifying throughout the 1900s, culminating in the Hutu-dominated government of the 1990s declaring total cleansing of Rwanda’s Tutsi population. The distinctions that separated the Hutus from the Tutsis were minimal and mostly class-based; they gained prominence at the behest of Belgian and German colonists in the first half of the twentieth century, who then gave privileges to the Tutsis that immediately separated them from the Hutu majority. It was only a matter of time, then, until the Hutus retaliated. By 1962, however, colonization was over and the only people left to weather Hutu anger were the Tutsis themselves.
• Thousands of Tutsis had been living as refugees in neighboring Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), among other countries, for decades at the time of the genocide and so were unharmed. Once the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by current President Paul Kagame, ended the genocide, many of these diasporans repatriated to Rwanda and repopulated the country–physically about the size of the U.S. state of Maryland–thus contributing to its current population of nearly 9 million.
• Since the genocide, ethnic terminology has been totally eliminated in Rwanda; any mention of the Hutu and Tutsi distinction is considered highly offensive, and people identify themselves–both personally and on official documents–only as Rwandan.

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 case with the Kurds is a fight born of desperation, similar to the stand of the Armenians in 1918, a resistance which takes into account neither numbers nor odds. It is the natural instinct for self-preservation and self-determination to which all peoples aspire.”

Such an expression of solidarity with the Kurdish Cause was not an aberration but, rather, a direct extension of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s rich legacy of standing shoulder to shoulder with all groups struggling against oppression. Drawing such links between other movements for social justice and the Armenian Cause is an important principle which deserves proper attention, not only for its moral and historical significance, but also for its political implications in today’s context of Hai Tahd activism.

Motivating Factors

There are two major underlying aspects behind the principle of solidarity. One is the moral aspect which considers freedom to be a social, rather than mere individual, pursuit. It is based on the belief that one can only truly be free when freedom becomes achieved for all others around them as well; for how can one truly be content and secure in their freedom if they are surrounded by suffering and injustice? This concept is perhaps best captured in Martin Luther King Jr’s famous quote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

The other dimension for solidarity hinges on a more practical political calculation: the belief that by coming together with others around a common goal, one can help build a broader base of power and improve social conditions. Indeed, by pooling resources and manpower, movements which are able to collaborate with one another are logically much more likely to achieve victories. The smaller a group or movement is, the more central this consideration becomes in their hopes for pursuing justice.

The ARF Legacy

In the history of the Armenian Cause, both of these dimensions have played a role in motivating initiatives to form bonds with non-Armenian circles. From very early on its existence, the ARF cultivated ties with other peoples who similarly struggled for liberation against despotic regimes. Such groups included the Russians, Kurds, Persians, Assyrians, Macedonians and even ordinary Turks who suffered under the Sultan.

Within the Armenian communities of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurdish masses stood out as an especially important group to establish cooperation with. Like Armenians, Kurdish peasants lived a servile existence under Ottoman rule and faced similar levels of exploitation. The ARF sought to explain that both peoples had a shared interest in resisting Turkish tyranny and the brutality of Kurdish landowning chieftains.

Several early ARF World Congresses passed decisions calling for the establishment of relations with Kurds; the pages of Droshak, the ARF’s official publication, commonly featured calls for peace with the Kurds; and fedayees such as Ishkhan, Vartkes, Goms, Roupen, Kevork Chavoush, Rosdom and many others made attempts to build bridges with the Kurdish working class. Although these attempts did not bear full fruit, there were in fact a handful of Kurds who were courageous enough to go against their powerful chiefs and join with the ARF in its struggle against the Sultan. Kurdish figures such as Msto, Valad Nuri, Kerpela Abbas, and Hamzeh put their lives on the line and fought shoulder to shoulder with Armenians. There was even a mixed Armeno-Kurdish ARF group led by the fedayee Mjo.

Nevertheless, the lack of a revolutionary consciousness and the grip of the feudal clan system within the Kurdish community served as an obstacle to broad-based collaboration. Many Kurds succumbed to the divide and conquer policies designed by the Turkish state and participated in the massacre of Armenians.

Following the Genocide, however, as the Turkish government turned its genocidal focus against the Kurds, the ARF once again extended a hand of harmony and collaboration to the Kurdish people. Figures such as Vahan Papazian worked to bring Kurds together and help them organize resistance against the increasingly repressive policies of Kemalist Turkey. Due to Papazian’s efforts, a first-ever national Kurdish league called Hoybun was formed in Lebanon in 1927. ARF leaders such as Garo Sassouni also allied in favor of the Kurdish struggle and the ARF officially raised the Kurdish issue at meetings of the Socialist International, beginning in 1925.

Securing Solidarity

Thus, as can be seen, attempts at solidarity between Kurds and Armenians persevered even in the face of past Kurdish involvement in atrocities against Armenians. This was due to the fact that Kurds are a people whose fate has been inextricably linked to that of Armenians. Both have been victims of Turkish brutality and have had their national rights denied.

Just as Turkish authorities once viewed Armenians’ call for equality and democracy as a “threat” to their empire, Ankara today interprets the Kurdish people’s demand for basic human rights as meaning “separatism.” Just as the Ottoman authorities refused to recognize the national identity of Armenians and called them “Christian Turks,” the Kurdish people have had to fight Turkey’s attempts to officially classify them as “Mountain Turks.” Just as they once did to Armenians, the Turkish government continues to suppress the language, history, and identity of Kurds; ransacks their schools and cultural monuments; bans their political parties and newspapers; pillages their towns and villages; terrorizes their families and children; subjects Kurds to a policy of Turkification; and attacks their human rights workers and journalists.

There is no better example of the horrific consequences of allowing Turkey to get away with the Genocide than what is happening today to the Kurds. Allowing a crime to go unpunished only tells the criminal that they can get away with the same crimes over and over again. We see this very clearly today in the case of Turkey’s policy toward the Kurds.

In this sense, there is a moral imperative to show solidarity with the Kurdish people’s struggle. At the same time, there is a tactical imperative to form cooperation with all those who share an interest in putting an end to Turkey’s inhumanity. The strength of all movements demanding justice from Turkey would be amplified if such diverse groups came together around their mutual points of concern. Not doing so would only serve the interests of the Turkish state and continue the divide-and-conquer policy it has so long pursued.

In addition, as has been pointed out by academic Bilgit Ayata, dialogue between Armenians and Kurds has the potential to serve as a counterweight to the counterproductive approach being pushed on the state level between Turkey and Armenia. Instead of succumbing to Turkey’s imposition of dominance under the guise of Turkish-Armenian “reconciliation,” Armenians should seek common cause with the Kurdish people and ask themselves how there can ever be genuine friendship with a country that still systematically oppresses over 20% of its own population.

Although there have been many disappointments and negative experiences in the ARF’s attempts to form coalitions with other struggles, there have also been many positive achievements. Indeed, some of the instances of collaboration with other liberation movements have undoubtedly formed one of the most remarkable chapters in ARF history. In this light, the benefits of collaboration should continue to be pursued, albeit carefully and with the vigilance that ensures that the rights of Armenians are never made expendable.

In 1999, the death toll of Kurds killed in Turkish military operations increased to over 40,000. According to the figures published by Turkey’s own Parliament, 6,000 Kurdish villages were systematically evacuated of all inhabitants and 3,000,000 Kurds have been displaced.

The systematic military campaign against them was nothing short of the elimination of a people, a culture and a homeland.  The oppression of Kurdish people within Turkey can be defined as genocide in various ways; cultural, linguistic and physical all play a part in the cleansing of Kurdish ethnicity from Turkey itself, and are still embraced by the Turkish constitution.

To date, however, Turkey denies these genocidal campaigns. 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.

Ocalan Says Kurdish Struggle is Against Genocide

Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, under detention in Italy in December of 1998, defended his cause as a struggle against genocide. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which he founded in 1978, has fought for nearly three decades for self-rule in southeast Turkey, where they make up the majority. “Despite the history of the Kurdish people which goes back more than 2,500 years–the Republic of Turkey continues to deny the existence of this people or its identity–language and culture,” Ocalan said.

In a 1998 letter directed to the President of Armenia, Ocalan welcomed the Belgian Senate’s passage of a resolution recognizing “the reality of the Armenian holocaust” and stated, “Let us recall Hitler’s response to a critic of the ‘final solution’ of the Jewish problem: ‘Who complained about the Armenians?’”

Kurdish Parliament in Exile Recognizes Genocide

On the 82nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, in 1997, the Brussels-based Kurdish Parliament in Exile passed a resolution recognizing and marking the Armenian Genocide. The resolution, signed by the parliament’s chairman, Zubeyir Aydar, condemned the Genocide and acknowledged the Ottoman government and their Hamidiye collaborators–formed by some Kurdish tribes–for the crime against humanity.

“The Turkish State regime–from history to our days–has worked against the peoples–as if a guilty party–and with her committed genocides has changed the demographics of Anatolia causing the demise of many cultures and civilizations,” the resolution said. “The same policies are being applied in Kurdistan today. I call upon the world public opinion to become aware of this Turkish State policies and vehemently oppose it.”

Turkish Policies Genocidal, Says DTP

Ahmet Turk, the leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) in Turkey was prosecuted in October of 2008 for denouncing the government’s policy regarding the Kurds as “cultural and societal genocide.” Speaking to supporters in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir, Turk said the Kurds had suffered under “cultural and societal genocide” since the military coup of 1980.

The speech came after days of protests in south-eastern cities where hundreds of Kurds were arrested after clashes in various towns in the pre-dominantly Kurdish-populated south-east.

Saddam’s Destruction of the Kurds

Between 1987-1988, Iraq’s deposed dictator Saddam Hussein slaughtered some 182,000 Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq, using artillery, air strikes, death camps and poison gas attacks. During his trial in late 2006, Hussein legitimized the massacres in Anfal “as a legitimate counter-insurgency operation against Kurdish separatists at a time when Iraq was at war with Iran,” much like the manner in which Turkey seeks to justify its Genocide of Armenians.

Panel Discusses Relations Between Turks, Kurds, and Armenians

On April 20, 2009 a panel comprised of Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish scholars came together in Massachusetts to discuss the uneven relations between Turks, Kurds, and Armenians under Ottoman Rule. The panel dove deep into the nuances of the Armenian Genocide, presenting the gamut of issues connected to it, from the role of Kurdish chieftains in the execution of the crime, to the open possibilities for reconciliation between Kurds and Armenians based on a shared experience of oppression under Turkish rule. “Kurdish-Armenian dialogue carries a very promising potential for reconciliation that is very much open to the issues of truth-seeking and justice, which are often absent in Turkish-Armenian dialogue,” said one panelist, Dr. Bilgin Ayata from Johns Hopkins University.

Turkish Assault on the PKK

Turkish warplanes have been bombing PKK installations in Northern Iraq since early 2008, when Turkey officially launched a ground incursion into northern Iraq, sending 10,000 troops across the border supported by air assets to neutralize PKK bases from which attacks against the Turkish military were being mounted. Since they first began as small-scale cross border incursions in late 2007, these attacks have led to the deaths of thousands of Kurds, civilian and PKK alike.  The first modern incursion into Northern Iraq, however, was launched in 1983 and has continued sporadically since.

Armenian Apology Causes Brawl in Turkish Parliament

On December 30, 2008, Turkey’s only pro-Kurdish political party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP) apologized to the Armenians and Assyrians for the 1915 Genocide. “Sensing the pain of the events in our hearts, we feel that we need to apologize,” it’s leader, Ahmet Turk said. “We are ashamed when we look at our Armenian or Assyrian brothers.”

That same day, a member of the DTP requested in parliament that the Turkish legislature apologize to Armenians for the “events of 1915,” which he described using the Kurdish word for Genocide. His remarks caused an uproar, with members from the Republican People’s Party and Justice and Development Party hurling personal insults at Kurdish deputy for “insulting the society in which you live.”

“We remember, We Share Your Grief”

On April 24, 2009, “Gunluk,” the Kurds’ only Kurdish-language newspaper in Turkey, featured a large headline above its logo that read: “We remember, we share your grief,” in Armenian with Armenian lettering.

Gunluk was the only paper in Turkey to commemorate the genocide victims—not with a few words, but by dedicating the entire issue to the genocide. On that same day, the Human Rights Association of Turkey organized a commemoration calling for the truth to be revealed that a genocide was committed here in this country in 1915. Although a number of Turkish media outlets were present, none bud Gunluk covered the event.

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.

***

Interviewee: Emin

Question: What have your parents told you regarding the Armenian genocide?

My father and my mother talked about it. For instance, there was Menushehr. The Muslims had married her. She was saying it wasn’t simply killing, it was genocide. They killed about 1.5 million Armenians.

Menushehr told me that, later, she became Christian again; she had become Muslim out of fear and bore three children. The ones who lived in the Mazidare and Dairik regions were all Armenians. They were the largest population in the area. They were killed and thrown in mass graves. People used to go, myself too, to scavenge for gold among their bones, for gold-plated teeth.

I mean, when old people and our parents talk about it, they tell the facts. Half a million Assyrians and 1.5 million Armenians were lost or killed at that time. That is what I can tell you.

Question: How old were you when you were looking for golden teeth in the mass graves?

I was eight, nine. I was in school. In 1938, we would search the bones for gold. That is what I have seen. What my parents were talking about was genocide: genocide of Armenians. The government ordered the genocide and the Mullahs made decrees in the mosques approving the killing of the Christians, and so, besides the army, the civilians also did the killing. This is according to my father and people of his time. I mean, it is what they were saying.

I mentioned the ones who became Muslim, they became Muslims out of fear. And the Muslims would marry them. Not the men, the women.

Menushehr was my friend. She used to tell me about the genocide. Said, they would chain people in groups called “Armenian chains.” Twenty to thirty per group, they would blindfold them and shoot them into mass graves.

Of course if the government finds out it will put us in trouble. It is doing it to us Kurds anyway. We are not historians but what we know cannot be denied: There was a genocide on them [Armenians]. Like the mass killing in Halabja [referring to the gassing of Kurds in Iraq by Saddam Hussein’s regime]. Can anyone deny the fact? With the chemical attack 5,000 were killed in a second. This is a genocide.

They didn’t use chemicals but used guns and swords. The woman [Menoshehr] told me they would throw the babies up in the air and let them fall onto their swords. The swords would pierce them or cut them in half. It was savagery. I haven’t seen it with my eyes but we have been told.

Question: Will Turkey admit to the Armenian genocide?

A couple of days ago I listened to the Europeans [on the news]. They said the Turks and the Kurds too, not just the Turks, because the Kurds also had a part in the genocide, should ask for apologies from the Armenians. And that is fair. We should ask for apologies.

I will tell you what my father told me (my father is dead now). He was involved in it; he killed Armenians. He participated in the genocide. In our region we had 10 to 15 Armenian villages. They either became Muslims or were killed.

***

Interviewee: Heleem

Question: What have your mother, grandmother told you regarding the genocide?

My grandfather talked about our neighbors who had seen terrible times. There was a village close to ours called Akrak. An Armenian village. They take them [the villagers] to another village called Chukhrek and slaughter them all and throw them in a grave. A boy had survived; his throat had a scar from the knife. He said, “They came and took us in the night, they started slaughtering us and throwing the bodies on top of each other. I slipped from underneath the pile.”

He said, “I made it back home. My grandmother, who was 70 years old, was left behind, asked who I was. I told her it is me, Grandma. She said ‘How did you survive?’ I said, ‘I just did, I don’t know how.’”
I mean, there are so many situations. I met a woman in Sultan Sheikhmoose, a village in Mazidare. She was Armenian in origin but turned Muslim. She said, Lad, we didn’t know a word of a Muslim verse, we submitted to Islam but they still killed a lot of us. The killing had nothing to do with faith, they killed us because we were smarter, more knowledgeable, good businessmen, civilized.

Because of that they were seen as a potential danger and so were subjected to genocide.

They made decrees that killing Armenians was a duty, killing them was a virtue, that if you kill an X number of Armenians, the doors of hell will become the door of Heaven. Due to their naivete and ignorance, people started killing the Armenians, took their young girls and made them their wives, took their belongings. Meanwhile, the poor Armenians were telling them, “Don’t do it, today it’s our turn, tomorrow will be yours.”

Question: Do you see Turkey admitting to or doing something about the genocide?

They deny it. They say they [the Armenians] have done it. That is strange. Even a child can tell you they are being dishonest. It is not something you can hide. The Armenians lived here and they are still here.

***
Interviewee: Mehmet

All the orchids and gardens in Dairike, the marble homes, all belonged to the Armenians. The orchids, the olive farms, etc. They left and now it is in our hands. It is their land and their property. They are now out in Istanbul, in Europe or Damascus and we are feeding on their property. I am sure they will find proof of ownership in the old records. There is a village, I forgot the name, Khanoke, the land there all belongs to them but now other villagers are using it. They weren’t harming anyone, but the government started killing them. There is a gorge called “Christian Gorge.” It is a deep gorge, where part of the genocide took place. They killed the people and threw them in the gorge. Right on those mountains, they would grab small kids, 6 months old, 1 year-olds, they would grab their arm and throw them into the gorge. Meanwhile they [the Turks] deny doing that.

Question: Throwing people like that to their death is barbaric. Tell us more about their monstrosity.

The monstrosity was committed by the government. When the republic was established they began doing it. They were also committing it during the Ottoman times. The genocide wasn’t only here. It was all over the country, or wherever there were Armenians.

Question: What does the Turkish government say about the genocide, and are they telling the truth?

It says it’s a lie and there is no such a thing. How could they deny such a fact, I don’t know. The whole world is aware of it. To deny it is viscous in itself. They killed the Kurds and the Yezidis, too, not just the Armenians. They are barbarians.

Question: It has been nearly 100 years since the genocide. How do you feel about it or when you remember it now?

[He cries.] I am still under the grievance. The stuff our grandfather told us, I am still hurt by it. Where is humanity? When you ask me these questions my inside is shaking. We were like brothers. Our parents and grandparents were the same. We had no differences and we had the same enemy. What else can I say?

***

Interviewee: Farqin

Many situations like that and a lot of mass killings took place at that time. The village we visited belonged to Christians. There were 300 Christian households. When I was young, I would go to the village, about 25 years ago. There were brass works done there. They were making pots and pans from brass. It used to be the work of the Christians. There were 300 families. They all moved out and escaped in one night. They say that they put their valuables in pots and buried them in the ground. They told the Kurds, We trust you with our homes and property. If we return give them back to us. If we don’t return then keep everything. My grandmother Aysha would tell us they didn’t believe the Christians could move out so swiftly. In the morning, we saw that the village was empty. She said they sat there and cried. Why did they leave? Why was there a genocide? Who did it? Did the republic do it? It happened before the republic was formed. They [the army] told the clerics to tell the masses that whoever kills the Christians will go to heaven.

Question: But the government policy at that time was to kill the boys and spare the girls.

It was like that. They had two boys and one girl. There were also rumors that there was an epidemic that killed them, but in reality, as you said, the boys were killed and the girls were saved for marriage. When they would capture them in groups and kill them the way the Nazis killed the Jews in the concentration camps, they would tie them up with ropes, take them to Zere and kill them en masse. The attractive women were spared. The rest were killed.

Question: What does the Turkish government say about the genocide, and are they telling the truth?

My grandmother is proof. Not only Turkey but if a hundred other nations deny it, I wouldn’t believe them. Go see Capson Valley. How could I believe the government? Go ask anyone in our district and they will tell you about the genocide of the Christians.

On hand were also members of the Kurdish American community of Atlanta. The following is a transcript of remarks offered at the commemoration event by Ara Alan, Secretary General of the Kurdish Youth Club and Director of the Kurdish Cultural Center in Atlanta, GA.

We are gathered today on April 24th to commemorate the souls lost during the Armenian Genocide. We are gathered to deliver the cries of help from those who were silenced in 1915 by the Ottoman Turks. I would like to take a moment to remember all the victims of genocide across the 20^th century; a century that has been darkened with their blood and silenced by our disregard.

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.

I come and stand with our friends, the Armenians, because I understand your cause. I understand what it means to have genocide committed against you.  I look to you with inspiration and pride. I wonder will our next generation be as courageous as you are. Like your grandparents, the crime of genocide has been committed against us, as well.

In Iraq, in the name of purification of a country, thousands of Kurds were taken from their villages and murdered in the deserts south of the country. This operation of genocide was name Anfal.  Chemical weapons were used in this operation by Saddam Hussein.  He used such illegal weapons to help scare and kill innocent villagers. They were used as a tool to round up the people.

Using strategic military planning, the Iraqi Army would attack a region in Kurdistan from three or more fronts. They would leave only one opening for the people to escape. Doing so, the Army would force the residents of the many villages in that region to congregate in one location. From there the villagers would be rounded up, shipped to concentration camps and systematically killed.

The Anfal genocide started in 1988 but it is without an end. The gassing during Anfal has acted as a mutagen and caused the DNA of its victims to change.  According to the Health Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the ratio of patients with cancer in the gassed populations is 5:1 when compared to non-gassed populations.

Many of the little girls exposed to the gassing in 1988 today give birth to children with down-syndrome or still-birth and they have very high rates of miscarriage; some have even become completely infertile. Incidents of breast cancer are much higher today in Kurdistan and cases of breast cancer are much more aggressive than in other countries, with a higher likelihood of death.

As result of the gassing many Kurds are dying today. Many are paralyzed, handicapped, blinded or bedbound. Many babies from the new generation are born with genetic diseases that result in their death or a life that is dependent on medical care, which is almost non-existent where they are born. In this way, the Kurdish genocide continues today into post-Saddam Iraq.

Dr. Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch, has categorized genocide into eight stages. He has done so to help the international community use these stages as indicators and a warning sign of upcoming genocides. Strangely enough all genocides follow these eight stages.

They all start with classification of the target group, followed by symbolization, then dehumanization, organization, polarization of the society, preparation, actual extermination in the seventh stage—and then denial in the eighth.

It might come to you as a surprise; why would denial be part of genocide? According to Genocide Watch, denial is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres.

The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover-up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses.  They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims.  In short, denial is a sign of justification of genocide and accepting it is a method of governance.

Turkey’s 94 years of denial policy should come as an alarm to the international community. The denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 was followed by the Dermis massacre in 1937. In a similar fashion to the Armenian Genocide, and with the exact same justification, 78,000 Kurds were massacred in that city in Turkey. The denial policy once again allowed Turkey to destroy over 4000 Kurdish villages in the 1990s.

Just like the Ottoman Turks greeted the twentieth century with stains of genocide, our twenty-first century already has a stain: Darfur.  Darfur stands tall, as a symbol of our failure to learn from previous genocides and our tolerance for genocide denial.

Genocides do not occur because one race of humanity is superior to the other. They don’t occur because one nation has the right to eradicate another or that one religious view or political ideology is superior above those different from it.

Genocide occurs when one group appoints themselves as superior and the world turns a blind eye. Genocide occurs because we let it. Our silence is the fuel that genocide perpetrators use to burn the bodies and hide the evidence.

Let us not be silent… let us speak and condemn… let us bring those that deny to acceptance.

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.

To give a brief overview, chocolate is made from cocoa beans which come from the cacao tree; without these seeds chocolate as we know it would not exist. So, where do these companies get their cocoa beans from? The answer for the most part is Ivory Coast. This leads to the most important question: how does Ivory Coast collect its cocoa beans? Ivory Coast (or Cote d’Ivoire) has one of the largest child labor systems and largest cocoa bean farms; 43% of the world’s cocoa beans come from there.

One would never guess the irony, and inhumanity, behind these companies. Their largest targets are kids, yet the ones doing the hardest manual labor are children as well.

These children work in horrendous conditions providing the main ingredient of the chocolates that children around the world consume. They are under atrocious conditions and suffer from extreme abuse. From one end of the world to the other, the knowledge and whereabouts of where these products are derived from are ignored.

Children as young as the age of nine are trafficked into cocoa farms (with up to 15,000 children in each farm) and are forced to work there with very little pay or in most cases with no pay at all. So why do we continue to support them and buy their products?

The main way to fight back is to spread awareness and to boycott such companies that use child labor to get ahead. It will be hard to give up these chocolates, but the good news is that chocolates from stores such as Trader Joes, Whole Foods and some Target brands are free of child slave labor.

The Ivory Coast is not the only source of cocoa seeds; however, it is the main one. The other sources are from Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon and according to UNICEF these sources also have children who do the hard labor of picking the cocoa beans. Although most people assume that slavery no longer exists in the 21st century, numerous investigative reports suggest that the number of slaves at present is the highest it has ever been. UNICEF reports that nearly 700,000 women and children trafficked yearly.

Although these companies have been confronted about their questionable practices, they have not made the effort to change it, claiming that they do not own the farms and therefore do not deserve the blame or responsibility. What they do not comprehend is that they are the largest supporters of these farms, with the consumers of their chocolate second in line.

Most consumers do not know this dark side of these companies. As a result, it is up to those who are aware to do their task and take action by spreading the news.

_________

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nanor Aghamal is a senior at Hoover High School and is an AYF Nanor Krikorian Scholar. Her above article was selected as the winning submission in the 2009 Haytoug High School Essay Contest.

Jewish Holocaust

In March 1952, following pressure on West Germany to atone for Nazi crimes and pay reparations, negotiations began between Germany, the State of Israel, and the World Jewish Congress. This was despite the fact that Israel and West Germany had not yet established diplomatic relations and the latter was the successor, not the legally constituted state, of Nazi Germany. A Reparations Agreement was finally signed in September of that year, and West Germany agreed to pay Israel a sum of 3 billion marks over the next fourteen years, another 450 million marks to the World Jewish Congress, and enacted legislation providing compensation to individual victims of Nazi persecution. These individual payments amounted to more than 100 billion marks by century’s end. The payments made to Israel were invested in the country’s infrastructure and played an important role in establishing the economy of the new state.

Japanese Americans

The Japanese-American Claims Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Truman in 1948, required the US government to compensate Japanese Americans who were evacuated from their homes and forced into internment camps during World War II. In addition to $38 million in compensation that was paid to victims under the Act, the law also called on institutions to memorialize the injustice done to Japanese Americans, so as to mourn their loss publicly and prevent a similar act from recurring in the future.

Guatemala

In Xuncax v. Gramajo, refugee survivors of the genocide against the Indians of Guatemala in the early 1980s, sued the former Defense Minister of Guatemala, General Hector Gramajo, the chief military commander responsible for the bloody campaign. Interestingly, the plaintiffs, eight Kanjobal Indians from Guatemala, were able to bring the lawsuit forth against another foreign national (Gramajo) in US court, under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789. The court’s verdict found that Gramajo “devised and directed the implementation of an indiscriminate campaign of terror against civilians such as plaintiffs and their relatives.” Subsequent to this decision, the general was barred from the United States under provisions of its immigration laws but remained at large outside the US.

Rwanda

On September 2, 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former head of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide, under the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide. Two days later, Jean Kambanda, the Prime Minister of Rwanda during the 1994 killings, became the first head of state to ever be convicted of the crime of genocide. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and currently sits in jail in Mali.

Yugoslavia

In a February 2007 decision, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found present-day Serbia guilty of violating the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Although the court did not find Serbia guilty of a direct campaign of genocide in the Bosnian war, it reprimanded it for failing to do everything in its power to stop the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 7000 Muslims or hand over those commanders who were responsible. This was the first time a state was deemed to be in breach of the Genocide Convention.

Native Americans

A federal judge ruled on August 7, 2008, that Native Americans suing the US government for royalties they collected from gas and oil companies that drilled on their lands are entitled to $455 million. Although much less than the amount plaintiffs were seeking, the ruling was an important chapter in the struggle to get compensation for the royalty money expropriated by the US Department of Interior, owed to half a million Native Americans and their heirs over the past 121 years.

Northern Cyprus

In January of 2008, in the case of “Varnava and Others v. Turkey,” the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of the families of 18 Greek Cypriots who were disappeared following Turkey’s 1974 invasion and occupation of Northern Cyprus. The court found Turkey guilty of violating several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights and ordered Ankara to pay the families due compensation. They also rejected Turkey’s argument that the Court should not be hearing a case dealing with matters that took place in the 1970s, long before Ankara accepted the Court’s jurisdiction.  Rather, the Court insisted that Turkey has continued to violate various articles of the Convention by refusing to conduct an investigation “aimed at clarifying the whereabouts and fate of the nine men who went missing in 1974.”

Darfur

On March 4, 2009, Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, became the first sitting president to be indicted by the International Criminal Court for directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur. The UN-backed court issued a formal arrest warrant for al-Bashir, who remains at large and has responded to charges by insisting the court has no authority over him or Sudan.

Cambodia

A UN-backed genocide tribunal began hearings this month against five senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge, the extreme Maoist regime which came to power in Cambodia in April of 1975 and proceeded to butcher an estimated 1.7 million of its own population. Three decades after the killings and 13 years after the tribunal was first proposed, victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide are finally getting the chance to bring the perpetrators to justice.

By Tamar Shahabian

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.

Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence has also incited its fair share of dramatic turmoil. Serbs throughout the Balkan region are angry and humiliated; and at the time of this writing, fewer than 30 countries out of 192 member states of the UN have formally recognized Kosovo’s declaration – hardly a majority. Serbia, Russia and a handful of European countries have been outspoken about their belief that recognizing Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence is tantamount to trouncing the international laws that govern matters of state sovereignty. They are worried about their own unhappy minorities getting ideas or gaining momentum for separatist quests. There has been much talk about whether a ‘Kosovo precedent’ has been created and what implications that might have for self-determination movements the world over.

They are right to worry. The manner in which Kosovo became a state was a historical event and historical events set precedents, period. Moreover, secessionist states such as Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, Palestine, Somaliland, and Western Sahara have much more in common with Kosovo than the US or UN want us to believe. Like Kosovar Albanians, citizens of many aspiring states have suffered discrimination, pograms and ethnic cleansing at the hands of their ‘parent states.’ They have responded by taking political measures to separate themselves from those national leaderships that failed to protect or include them; they have built democratic institutions of their own; and, over time, they have become functioning entities. After so many years of self-rule, it is not only unjust, but unrealistic to expect them to re-integrate into the states which forced their separation in the first place.

To be sure, the sheer amount of resources and attention that has been devoted to Kosovo by the international community cannot be rivalled by the other aspiring states; in this sense, Kosovo is unique. No other comparable movements have received the extent of military, economic or political support enjoyed by the Kosovars. Political circumstances have been the determining factor in which self-determination movements become valid in the eyes of the international community. But the way external actors regard Kosovo is not the only thing that matters. The internal drive and passion of the Kosovar Albanians to be free to govern themselves and exercise the same right of self-determination that all ‘peoples’ are entitled to is the same drive and passion which motivates other such movements.

Indeed, the Albanians of Kosovo and the Armenians of Karabakh base their statehood aspirations on the same principle: the right of self-determination, which was first enshrined by the UN Charter in 1945 and reinforced in subsequent texts which still form the basis of international law on the issue of national territory. The fact that Kosovo’s plight has received unequivocally more attention than Karabakh’s does not change the fact that both movements are legitimate for the same reasons.

Still, the outcomes have played out differently as Kosovo has now achieved its goal of independence – to the credit of the US, most of Western Europe, and the UN rather than Priština, necessarily. In other words, Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence would not have mattered so much to anyone but the Serbs if it were not for the acceptance of that proclamation by other countries, including the world powers (with the notable exceptions of Russia and China). To use the words of New School University professor, Anna DiLellio, independence is not so much declared as recognized – meaning that a claim of independence is not legitimate unless or until others confirm the legitimacy of the claim.

Armenians are well aware of this political realism; Karabakh made its own declaration of independence in 1991 but still no country in the world has recognized it as a sovereign state. So how real is the claim? Isn’t the essence of self-determination that peoples should be the determinants of their own fate? Why should the rest of the world disregard their voices? Why should we force them to be part of a state they want nothing to do with? Whose right is it to say that they, the very people inhabiting the land, should not have the final say in how that land is governed? Is that not what democracy means at its core?

Yes, it is, but only in principle. In the real world, states will choose whether to recognize Kosovo based on political considerations such as their own domestic state of affairs, positions of their allies, and economic matters. Nations will not base their policy towards Kosovo on principle, or even really consider whether the Albanians there have a just claim to independence. We live in a state-centric system; by definition, it is in the national interest of countries to discourage and dismantle self-determination movements since they threaten to change the lines on the world map from which states derive their authority.

Thus, the outcome of the Kosovo situation is the exception and not the rule. In principle, it is a precedent, but in practice, it may be an anomaly.

So what then is the relevance of Kosovo to Karabakh? My only answer is this: the exceptional international attention that has been and will continue to be devoted to Kosovo’s independence may be able to serve as a starting point for launching a more widespread dialogue on the issue of national self-determination. If nothing else, perhaps the simple fact that a decisive outcome to the Kosovo situation has finally been reached will give hope to other peoples in similar situations that the deadlock need not last forever.

This past January, Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, hosted an extravagant three-day visit for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.  This was the second such official trip from Sudan to Turkey at the presidential level.  During his stay, Bashir was treated to an exclusive state dinner at the Turkish presidential palace, met with several top level officials, and attended a Turkish-Sudanese business meeting held by the Turkish Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) in Istanbul.

This latest trip is only the most recent manifestation of a Turkish affinity for Sudan that has been steadily growing in line with an escalation of violence in Darfur since 2003.

As has been well documented, the Darfur region of Sudan has been subject to a systematic campaign of murder, looting, rape and pillaging, carried out mainly by a government-sponsored militia known as the Janjaweed. According to international human rights groups, this campaign has already resulted in the deaths of over 400,000 people and the displacement of 2.5 million from their homes, in what the United States has officially described as genocide.

While the rest of the world has marginalized Sudan and called for an end to its crimes in Darfur, the Turkish government has proceeded to turn this country into its largest trading partner in Africa.  The volume of trade between Ankara and Khartoum shot up from $48 million in 2002 to $220 million in 2006—an increase that took place during the same period when Sudan was intensifying its killings in Darfur. Turkey hopes to develop these trade links even further in the future, with one of the stated goals of the above-mentioned DEIK meeting being to boost levels of trade to $1 billion.

As a country that has been outcast in the international community, especially in the West, Sudan very much values Turkey as an economic and political partner. As al-Bashir stated during his remarks at the DEIK meeting, “Sudanese businessmen do not only want to emerge in the Turkish market, but also to use it as a passage to European and other international markets.” In turn, Turkey hopes to benefit economically from Sudan’s potential in sectors such as oil, cotton, industry, and services. There have also been reports that the Turkish Defense Ministry is currently looking into supplying Sudan’s deadly demand for weapons.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the country responsible for the first genocide of the twentieth century has no qualms about building a strong strategic relationship with the country now carrying out the first genocide of the twenty-first century.  Indeed, not only is Turkey rewarding Sudan for its inhumanity by filling up its coffers and helping it access markets in Europe, but we also see it actively taking part in Khartoum’s shameless campaign of genocide denial.

In a January 20 interview, prior to al-Bashir’s visit to Turkey, President Gul told the Sudan News Agency that Turkey is in “solidarity” with Sudan and warned against any “foreign intervention” over Darfur aimed at breaking “the unity of Sudan.” He later dismissed calls for putting pressure on al-Bashir to end the atrocities in Darfur by claiming what is happening there is a “humanitarian tragedy” that “stems from poverty and environmental conditions.” Gul’s colleague Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also joined in on the denial when he stated in March 2007, “I do not believe that there has been assimilation of a genocide in Darfur. In any case, the verses of the Koran reject tribalism and clans.”

In fact, when one takes a close look at Sudan’s method of genocide and its subsequent denial, we see that they are doing nothing more than taking a page out of Turkey’s playbook (see Chart A for Sudan’s almost word for word use of Ankara’s genocide denial techniques). The fact that Turkey committed genocide and remains unpunished for so long has surely emboldened the regime in Khartoum to carry out similar policies in Darfur without fear of serious retribution. Like Hitler, al-Bashir must be thinking to himself, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Indeed, Sudanese officials have repeatedly stated their lauding admiration for Turkey as “a model for Sudan” and desire to “want to benefit from Turkey’s experiences.” They have also sought to market themselves to the world in an identical manner, with Sudan describing itself as a “bridge between Arabic and African nations,” much like Ankara claims itself to be a bridge between Europe and Asia.

Thus, it is clear that the Sudanese regime is trying to follow in Turkey’s footsteps.  This adds further proof to the fact that giving in to the Turkish denial machine makes the world a more dangerous place.  As long as Turkey does not own up to the crimes it has committed (and is aided in this process by officials in the US), it will continue to serve as a model for governments such as that of Khartoum who seek to get away with slaughtering an entire group of people.

In the words of Mark Hanis, founder and director of the Genocide Intervention Network, “Increased cooperation between the two countries [Turkey and Sudan] serves to highlight the connections between genocides of the past and those of the present . . . The continued denial of the Armenian Genocide sends the wrong message to Sudan and those who would commit genocide in the future.”

If we want to stop the cycle of genocide today and prevent future atrocities, we have to start by speaking truthfully about the genocides of the past.  In this way, recognizing the Armenian Genocide is not a historical issue but, rather, a very current one with real world consequences for peace today.

Turkey and Sudan: Comparative Genocide Denial