Over 10,000 people demonstrated at the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles on Fri., April 24, demanding an end to Turkey’s ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide and voicing sharp disappointment at U.S. President Barack Obama for breaking his campaign pledge to properly recognize the crime against humanity in his address to the Armenian American community.
The demonstration, organized annually by the AYF, is a symbolic focal point for the community and represents its year-long struggle to gain proper recognition and justice for the
planned annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923.
This year’s protest converged with global expectations pertaining to Obama’s campaign pledges to reaffirm the U.S. record on the genocide. Turkey had repeatedly threatened to retaliate against U.S. interests in Iraq and Afghanistan in response to U.S. recognition of its crime.
This year, the United States had the best chance in a generation to help end the cycle of genocide with Obama having been a forceful proponent of genocide recognition and prevention. “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that President,” Obama had said during his campaign.
“But today, the president broke his promise to bring change to the White House on the issue of genocide,” said one demonstrator, holding a sign that asked why Obama fell short. “The president’s failure to accurately characterize the genocide after having spoken forcefully about ending the genocide in Darfur will undermine his credibility when speaking about the issue of genocide.”
Many at the demonstration shared this disappointment, angered by the fact that Turkey was again able to coax the United States of America into silence.
For decades, the government of Turkey has been engaged in a pro-active, relentless, and shameless campaign to deny the horrors it committed during the genocide. In the last 30 years, Turkey has redoubled its efforts to erase history, leveraging high-level contacts in the defense industry; enticing support from journalists who propagate Turkey’s “importance as a key ally”; and hiring professional lobby firms and such high-profile former congressmen as Dick
Ghephardt, Bob Livingston, and Denis Hastert to bribe U.S. representatives and leaders into staying silent.
“Turkey’s threats to retaliate against us for speaking against genocide tells us more about Turkey and its own domestic problems than it does about the Armenian Genocide, which we all know to be an established fact of history,” said Saro Haroun, a spokesperson for the AYF, who spoke to reporters covering the demonstration about Turkey’s annual attempts to prevent the U.S. from reaffirming its record on the genocide.
Another demonstrator said America’s stand against genocide must be driven by moral values, not political interests. Turkish officials, from the president to the foreign minister, had repeatedly warned Obama to steer clear of the issue or face retaliation by Turkey. Ankara threatened to sabotage U.S. efforts to leave Iraq and break off negotiations with Armenia over the establishment of diplomatic relations and the lifting of its illegal blockade.
“Ankara has been using its talks with Yerevan to scuttle international recognition of the Armenian Genocide,” explained another protestor. “Throughout the entire process, Turkey has been placing preconditions on Armenia, demanding it drop efforts to recognize the genocide and
agree to establish a historical commission to ostensibly examine the events of 1915-23.”
Such a commission seeks to question the veracity of the genocide, which is widely accepted by historians as fact.
Friday’s protest came two days after the Armenian and Turkish foreign ministries issued a joint statement announcing that the two governments had agreed on a “road map” for normalizing bilateral relations. The cryptic statement is seen as a tacit green light to Obama to not recognize the genocide, a move most in Armenia and its worldwide diaspora have categorically condemned as a diplomatic blunder.
“Given its past practice and the obvious timing of this agreement just prior to April 24, Turkey’s motive is absolutely clear—to defer, delay, and defeat U.S. recognition of the genocide,” exclaimed Arek Santikian, another spokesperson of the AYF.
“I am skeptical of Turkey’s willingness to sincerely engage in meaningful dialogue. It’s hard to believe that Turkey has in any meaningful way altered its longstanding belligerence toward Armenians, which it oppresses within its own country by making it a crime to discuss the genocide,” he said, expressing disappointment both with Obama and Armenian President Serge Sarkisian. “The release of the statement on the eve of the 94th anniversary of the genocide and right before Obama was expected to recognize the genocide is a blow to Armenia, the Armenian people, and worldwide efforts to end the genocide in Darfur.”
Many at the event described Obama’s April 24 statement as a “retreat” from American values and a setback to the vital change he promised to bring to Washington during his campaign. Some demonstrators likened the president’s handling of the situation with how the Bush Administration tiptoed around the issue every April 24. George Bush repeatedly reneged on his campaign pledge to recognize the genocide. Placating Turkish interests, Bush personally lobbied members of Congress in 2007 to prevent them from passing a resolution reaffirming the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide.
“Although we don’t need any president to tell us that the genocide occurred in 1915, because the facts speak for themselves, we look to Barack Obama to end the semantics by speaking truthfully on the issue by properly condemning and commemorating this crime,” said Vache Thomassian, the chairman of the AYF. “We urge our president to make a speedy and public correction to his administration’s policy on the Armenian Genocide.”
Thomassian, who delivered a speech at the demonstration, added that he also expects Obama to work toward the adoption of the Armenian Genocide Resolution introduced in Congress earlier in March. “The resolution has over a hundred co-sponsors now and the community should redouble its grassroots efforts to ensure that support for the bi-partisan legislation grows to secure its passage,” he said.
“Our struggle does not begin or end with one day; it does not being or end with the Turkish Consulate; and it does not begin or end with any statements by Barack Obama,” he exclaimed in his remarks.
Thomassian honored the memory of Ghazaros Kademian, a genocide survivor who regularly attended the demonstration until his death earlier this year at the age of 102. “It is for Ghazaros’ generation as well as our future generations that we fight [for recognition and prevention].”
The community’s struggle, he continued, is “built on a desire for justice for the lives that were lost, the properties that were taken, and the lands that have been occupied.”
“No pathetic attempt to normalize relations between Armenia and Turkey can bring justice without recognizing the genocide,” he added.
Guest Contributor
It is astonishing to read that President Obama did not use the word “genocide” to describe the slaughter of nearly 2 million Armenians during 1915-23, knowing that the word “genocide” was coined by Jurist Raphael Lemkin to specifically describe the barbarity that befell the Armenians at the hands of the Turks.
Dr. Lemkin, a lawyer of Polish-Jewish descent and Holocaust survivor, used the word “genocide” in 1943 to describe the genocide of the Armenians and then the Holocaust. Dr. Lemkin played an important role in compelling the United Nations to adopt the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948.
In a 1949 CBS news interview, Dr. Lemkin talked about the UN Convention and the Armenian genocide. Showing footage of Turkish soldiers brutally chasing and killing Armenians, Dr. Lemkin explained that the Turks acted with the intent to annihilate nearly 2 million Armenians who were driven from their homes to perish in the desert or die before they got there.
Before the word “genocide” existed, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and world leaders described the events as the “Armenian holocaust.” President Obama, who does not speak Armenian, used the Armenian phrase “Medz Yeghern” (The great catastrophe) thus shielding Turkey of any accountability for its crimes of genocide under the UN convention and international laws.
Imagine if back in the days of West Germany the US president refrained from using the word “Holocaust” not wanting to offend or sour relations with a strategic NATO ally, thus only describing the destruction of the European Jewry during World War II as “Ha Shoah”.
In 1985, the United Nations Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities recognized the Armenian Genocide in an official report.
In 2003, the International Center for Transitional Justice found that the events of 1915 include “all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
And, in 2005 the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) unanimously affirmed the Armenian genocide.
The Armenian genocide has been officially recognized by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliament of Europe, and many European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Slovakia, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Lithuania, and the Vatican.
The Armenian genocide has also been acknowledged by Armenia, Russia, Lebanon, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Australia and 43 U.S. states, and by scores of international organizations worldwide.
so they protested in LA so what? Why not protest by the thousands in front of the White House or something? Because nobody wants to travel? That is the price of Armenian commitment, protest in the neighborhood. If they really care they should hop on nthe plane by the thousands and drive to Washington DC to protest not in Little Armenia!!!
Obama is a trader, period. I knew once he went to the house and faced the Turkish Politicians that he would change his mind… America needs Turkey and they don’t want anything or anyone country to get in the way – even if that makes Obama a flip flopper – I didn’t vote for him and wished he never became our president… the Guy has one plan and it’s the “New World Order” trust me, this too will unveil itself slowly…
Give Obama some time!!!