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TWO CAMPS TUG AT ISSUE OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By David Olson, [email protected]
Press-Enterprise, CA
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_N ews_Local_D_armenianside15.295044b.html
Nov 15 2007
Although the Turkish government contends the deaths of more than 1
million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 were not a genocidal attempt
to expunge the Armenian population from their ancestral homeland in
what is now eastern Turkey, many leading scholars say the massacres
clearly fit the definition of genocide.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars unanimously approved
a 2005 letter stating that "the overwhelming opinion of scholars who
study genocide" is that the murders were genocidal.
To deny the Armenian genocide "is like Holocaust denial," said Gregory
Stanton, vice president of the association, president of Genocide Watch
and a professor of human rights at the University of Mary Washington
in Virginia.
Other genocide-studies groups -- including the Center for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, the Institute
on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem and the Institute for the
Study of Genocide at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York
-- also term the massacres genocide.
James Sheehan, a professor of history at Stanford University and former
president of the American Historical Association, said extensive
documentation supports defining the atrocities as genocide, which
involves a deliberate intent to fully or partially destroy an ethnic,
national, racial or religious group.
Sheehan said evidence that Turks tried to obliterate their Armenian
population is visible throughout eastern Turkey, which had been home
to Armenians for 2,500 years.
"I've spent some time in eastern Turkey, and it's quite remarkable
that there's virtually no trace of the Armenian population that lived
there for centuries," he said.
The Turkish government said the number of Armenian deaths has been
exaggerated.
Armenian groups say 1.5 million died. Stanton said the number was
between 1 million and 1.5 million.
The Turks say fewer than 600,000 Armenians died.
The Turkish government asserts that the deaths occurred as part of
World War I and its aftermath, when many Armenians supported Russia,
which was at war with the Ottoman Empire, the forebear of modern
Turkey. Armenians also killed many Turks, the government contends.
The Turkish government has prosecuted Turks -- including Nobel
Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk -- who deviate from the government's
official position on the Armenians' deaths.
Serdar Bozdag, a Turk studying for a computer-science doctorate at UC
Riverside, said it is clear that horrible violence occurred between
Armenians and Turks during World War I.
But, he said, "with all the problems we have today, we should not
focus on the history. We should focus on today."
By David Olson, [email protected]
Press-Enterprise, CA
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_N ews_Local_D_armenianside15.295044b.html
Nov 15 2007
Although the Turkish government contends the deaths of more than 1
million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 were not a genocidal attempt
to expunge the Armenian population from their ancestral homeland in
what is now eastern Turkey, many leading scholars say the massacres
clearly fit the definition of genocide.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars unanimously approved
a 2005 letter stating that "the overwhelming opinion of scholars who
study genocide" is that the murders were genocidal.
To deny the Armenian genocide "is like Holocaust denial," said Gregory
Stanton, vice president of the association, president of Genocide Watch
and a professor of human rights at the University of Mary Washington
in Virginia.
Other genocide-studies groups -- including the Center for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, the Institute
on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem and the Institute for the
Study of Genocide at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York
-- also term the massacres genocide.
James Sheehan, a professor of history at Stanford University and former
president of the American Historical Association, said extensive
documentation supports defining the atrocities as genocide, which
involves a deliberate intent to fully or partially destroy an ethnic,
national, racial or religious group.
Sheehan said evidence that Turks tried to obliterate their Armenian
population is visible throughout eastern Turkey, which had been home
to Armenians for 2,500 years.
"I've spent some time in eastern Turkey, and it's quite remarkable
that there's virtually no trace of the Armenian population that lived
there for centuries," he said.
The Turkish government said the number of Armenian deaths has been
exaggerated.
Armenian groups say 1.5 million died. Stanton said the number was
between 1 million and 1.5 million.
The Turks say fewer than 600,000 Armenians died.
The Turkish government asserts that the deaths occurred as part of
World War I and its aftermath, when many Armenians supported Russia,
which was at war with the Ottoman Empire, the forebear of modern
Turkey. Armenians also killed many Turks, the government contends.
The Turkish government has prosecuted Turks -- including Nobel
Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk -- who deviate from the government's
official position on the Armenians' deaths.
Serdar Bozdag, a Turk studying for a computer-science doctorate at UC
Riverside, said it is clear that horrible violence occurred between
Armenians and Turks during World War I.
But, he said, "with all the problems we have today, we should not
focus on the history. We should focus on today."