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Dr. Henry Astarjian

Dr. Henry Astarjian

Dr. Henry Astarjian was born in Kirkuk, Iraq. In 1958, he graduated from the Royal College of Medicine and went on to serve as an army medical officer in Iraqi Kurdistan. He continued his medical education in Scotland and England. In 1966, he emigrated to the U.S. In 1992, he served as a New Hampshire delegate to the Republication National Convention in Houston, Texas. For three years Astarjian addressed the Kurdish Parliament in Exile in Brussels, defending Armenian rights to Western Armenia. For three consecutive years, he addressed the American Kurds in California and Maryland. He is the author of The Struggle for Kirkuk, published by Preager and Preager International Securities.
Dr. Henry Astarjian

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8 Comments

  1. France ceded Al-Iskenderoun to the Turkish Republic only in 1938, after a rigged referendum that in effect undercounted the Arab majority of the province. While generally the shameful session seems to have been an attempt to bribe the Turks not to ally themselves with Nazi Germany in any upcoming conflict, apparently a certain amount of quite poisonous rivalry between factions in the French foreign ministry had a role to play. (At least one monograph on these internecine French rivalries was published in the last fifty years, but unfortunately I don’t have a reference.)

  2. Dr. Astarjian, I would very much like to translate this article to Arabic and publish it in few Arabic websites which I work with. If I had your E-mail address, copies will be forwarded to you.

  3. Overall, I liked the article. I didn’t like it at first, but upon a second and third reading I realized what I really didn’t like was the inconvenient truths that I had to face about my country’s past. That said, still have a few issues with this piece:

    “Two decades or so later, in an inner struggle, the CHP managed to convict the president of the country, Calal Bayar, and the prime minister, Adnan Menderes, to death; the life of the first was spared because of age, but the second was hanged in public. They were convicted for corruption. ”

    I’m sorry but that accusing the CHP of the hanging of PM Menderes is just completely and utterly false.

    Ismet Inonu (leader of CHP), in a letter to Cemal Gursel (head of the military junta) 4 days before the execution of Adnan Menderes: “The death penalty over political issues does not exist in any civilized nation on the face of the earth… and I request that you inform the National Unity Committee (the military junta conducting the trials) of my thoughts on this matter”

    It was quite a lengthy letter and CHP leader was literally pleading for Menderes to not be executed. The “internal struggle” you mention was a military coup d’etat led by pan-Turkish fascist Alparslan Turkes, founder of our lovely far right MHP whose youth wing go by the name of the Grey Wolves.

    “They were convicted of corruption”

    Yes they were convicted of embezzlement, but that’s wasn’t their major crime. The main reason for their execution was violating the constitution (which, by the way, they absolutely did), as well as being charged for the 1955 Istanbul pogroms against the Greeks.

    I understand the passage I selected was a very small part of the article, but if you’re going to write a histiography of Turkish political developments I don’t expect a SINGLE error. Interesting that you note the character assassination on Menderes while also presenting the CHP in a way that you character assassinate the CHP. (I’m not trying to accuse you of doing anything intentionally Dr. Astarjian)

    Finally: “Mustafa Kemal Ataturk committed genocide against the Kurds, especially the people of Dersim”

    Stop it. Stop using a massacre of my people (I am both a Kurd AND an Alevi) to promote your agenda of “Turkey committed genocide against everyone.” Stop it. Not everything is a genocide. If everything is a genocide then “Genocide” becomes a meaningless word in every case, including the Armenian case. It was a massacre. Forced assimilation. Ethnocide. Definite crimes against humanity. Does not make Dersim a genocide. Prove Dolus Specialis in the Dersim case or don’t call it a genocide. Period.

    • Thank you for your comments! Killings of Dersimlis fit the UN definition of Genocide, hence my characterization.

    • {” Stop it. Not everything is a genocide. “}

      Well said RVDV. Agree completely.

      It has apparently become fashionable to call every atrocity a ‘genocide’. Sadly, many Armenians have jumped on the bandwagon.

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