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UN RWANDA GENOCIDE EXHIBIT DELAYED
Al-Arab online, UK
April 10 2007
A U.N. exhibit on the 13th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide has
been delayed after Turkish objections to a mention of the killing of
Armenians in Turkey during World War One, organizers said on Monday.
James Smith, chief executive of the British-based Aegis Trust which
works to prevent genocide and helped organize the photo exhibition,
said the U.N. Department of Public Information approved the contents
and it was put up on Thursday.
The photo and text exhibit, organized in part by the
British-based Aegis Trust, was scheduled to be opened on Monday by
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
But Turkey objected to a sentence in the text, which showed how the
Armenian killings contributed to the creation of the term genocide,
according to James Smith, chief executive of Aegis, whose mission is
to prevent genocide.
It said: "Following World War One, during which 1 million Armenians
were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the League
of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes,"
Smith said.
Organizers said they were informed of the delay by the U.N. Department
of Public Information, which had initially approved the exhibit in
the visitors' lobby.
The secretary-general's office then consented to the postponement.
U.N. officials confirmed that objections by Turkey and others, which
they did not mention, were responsible for the delay.
One staff member said an official in the Department of Public
Information had not sent the text to other divisions for fact-checking.
"The exhibition has been postponed until the regular review process
is completed," U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said.
David Browan, communications director for Aegis, told Reuters that
Armenian diplomats had agreed to the removal of the words "in Turkey,"
which was acceptable to his group. But he said, "We understand that
was not acceptable to the U.N."
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.
Turkey, however, denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying that
the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.
Turkey says large numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim
Turks died in a partisan conflict raging at that time.
Aegis, however, is resisting removing references to the Armenian
killings in connection with the exhibit on Rwanda, where at least
800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by Hutus.
The murders began on April 6, 1994.
The exhibit also mentions the Nazi extermination of Jews in World
War Two and has passing references to Cambodia's killing fields and
crimes in Bosnia, East Timor and Sudan.
But a U.N. official insisted the exhibit would take place.
"We are committed to it. It is a very important issue," said Manoel de
Almeida e Silva, an official in the strategic communications division.
Rwanda's genocide began hours after a plane carrying President
Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down as it approached the capital,
Kigali, on April 6, 1994.
The 100-day slaughter, in which more than 500,000 minority Tutsis
were killed by Hutus, ended after rebels ousted the extremist Hutu
government that orchestrated the killings.
Smith said the panel on the origin of genocide could have been done
without referring to the Armenians.
But once the Armenian reference "was there and approved, we felt as a
matter of principle you can't just go around striking things out. It
is a form of denial, and as an organization that deals with genocide
issues, we couldn't do that on any genocide, and we can't do this,"
he said.
"If we can't get this right, it undermines all the values of the U.N.
It undermines everything the U.N. is meant to stand for in terms of
preventing (genocide)," Smith said.
"You can't learn the lessons from history if you're going to sweep
all of that history under the carpet. And what about accountability?
What about ending impunity if you're going to hide part of the truth?
It makes a mockery of all of this."
Al-Arab online, UK
April 10 2007
A U.N. exhibit on the 13th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide has
been delayed after Turkish objections to a mention of the killing of
Armenians in Turkey during World War One, organizers said on Monday.
James Smith, chief executive of the British-based Aegis Trust which
works to prevent genocide and helped organize the photo exhibition,
said the U.N. Department of Public Information approved the contents
and it was put up on Thursday.
The photo and text exhibit, organized in part by the
British-based Aegis Trust, was scheduled to be opened on Monday by
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
But Turkey objected to a sentence in the text, which showed how the
Armenian killings contributed to the creation of the term genocide,
according to James Smith, chief executive of Aegis, whose mission is
to prevent genocide.
It said: "Following World War One, during which 1 million Armenians
were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the League
of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes,"
Smith said.
Organizers said they were informed of the delay by the U.N. Department
of Public Information, which had initially approved the exhibit in
the visitors' lobby.
The secretary-general's office then consented to the postponement.
U.N. officials confirmed that objections by Turkey and others, which
they did not mention, were responsible for the delay.
One staff member said an official in the Department of Public
Information had not sent the text to other divisions for fact-checking.
"The exhibition has been postponed until the regular review process
is completed," U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said.
David Browan, communications director for Aegis, told Reuters that
Armenian diplomats had agreed to the removal of the words "in Turkey,"
which was acceptable to his group. But he said, "We understand that
was not acceptable to the U.N."
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.
Turkey, however, denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying that
the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.
Turkey says large numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim
Turks died in a partisan conflict raging at that time.
Aegis, however, is resisting removing references to the Armenian
killings in connection with the exhibit on Rwanda, where at least
800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by Hutus.
The murders began on April 6, 1994.
The exhibit also mentions the Nazi extermination of Jews in World
War Two and has passing references to Cambodia's killing fields and
crimes in Bosnia, East Timor and Sudan.
But a U.N. official insisted the exhibit would take place.
"We are committed to it. It is a very important issue," said Manoel de
Almeida e Silva, an official in the strategic communications division.
Rwanda's genocide began hours after a plane carrying President
Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down as it approached the capital,
Kigali, on April 6, 1994.
The 100-day slaughter, in which more than 500,000 minority Tutsis
were killed by Hutus, ended after rebels ousted the extremist Hutu
government that orchestrated the killings.
Smith said the panel on the origin of genocide could have been done
without referring to the Armenians.
But once the Armenian reference "was there and approved, we felt as a
matter of principle you can't just go around striking things out. It
is a form of denial, and as an organization that deals with genocide
issues, we couldn't do that on any genocide, and we can't do this,"
he said.
"If we can't get this right, it undermines all the values of the U.N.
It undermines everything the U.N. is meant to stand for in terms of
preventing (genocide)," Smith said.
"You can't learn the lessons from history if you're going to sweep
all of that history under the carpet. And what about accountability?
What about ending impunity if you're going to hide part of the truth?
It makes a mockery of all of this."