Armenians Mark Anniversary of Killings
Those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it.
- Georges Santayana
The word “holocaust” has lost almost all meaning, given what happened to 6 million Jews in WWII. Still, can the death of as many as 1.5 millions innocent Armenians be fairly described as anything BUT a holocaust?
Truly, what happened to 1.5 million innocents in a pogrom that began 90 years ago yesterday is a genocide of horrific and almost unimaginable proportions. What makes it even more tragic is that the world has neither known, remembered, nor much cared about what happened to so many Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.
YEREVAN, Armenia รณ Armenians on Sunday marked the 90th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, vowing to press their case to have the killings recognized by Turkey and the world as a genocide….
It’s a sad commentary on the state of humanity that, 90 years after the massacre, governments are still debating over whether or not this meets the “legal definition” of genocide. The splitting of legal hairs aside, the end results are still the same…and yet Turkey has never been called to account for these atrocities- nor has the Turkish government admitted responsibility.
Ottoman authorities began rounding up intellectuals, diplomats and other influential Armenians in Istanbul on April 24, 1915, as violence and unrest grew, particularly in the eastern parts of the country.
Armenia says up to 1.5 million Armenians ultimately died or were killed over several years as part of a genocidal campaign to force them out of eastern Turkey. Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians died, but says the overall figure is inflated and that the deaths occurred in the civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
France, Russia and many other countries have already declared the killings were genocide; the United States, which has a large Armenian diaspora, has not.
Turkey, which has no diplomatic ties with Armenia, is facing increasing pressure to fully acknowledge the event, particularly as it seeks membership in the European Union. The issue is extremely sensitive in Turkey and Turks have faced prosecution for saying the killings were genocide.
Ankara earlier this month called for the two countries to jointly research the killings.
Ninety years later, and the best the Turkish government can come up with is an offer to “research” the killings? What is there to research? Turkey has already acknowledged that large numbers of Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman government. Why not just give the Armenians their due, admit Turkey’s responsibility, and focus on doing what little can be done 90 years later to make things right?
Perhaps the saddest aspect of this tragedy is that, though everyone learns about the Holocaust in school, the Ottoman massacre of Armenians is rarely, if ever, mentioned. If it ever is mentioned, it is in the briefest of manners.
Santayana was right….
If I'm not mistaken, Hitler referenced this genocide when speaking of the Final Solution, stating something along the lines of "nobody remembers the Armenians"...