Waiting Too Long to Do What's Right

By Senator Robert Dole

"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

These are the chilling words uttered just a half century ago by Adolf Hitler, as he prepared to unleash the Holocaust on Nazi Germany.

We must prove Hitler wrong. As the world leader on human rights, America must "speak" of the genocide of 1915-1923.

Seventy-five years is simply too long to wait for the US to do what is right—for the victims, for the survivors and for their families. That is why 1990 must be the year that Congress enacts a resolution calling for a national day of remembrance for the victims of one of the darkest chapters in 20th-century history.

Despite the best efforts of Turkey to suppress the facts, you can't erase a genocide. You can't wipe out the horror of mass executions and forced death marches, the planned starvation of women and children.

It happened! The Holocaust Memorial Council and Elie Wiesel, the world's authority on the Nazi holocaust, believe there was an Armenian genocide; Rafael Lemkin, the creator of the word "genocide," was convinced there was an Armenian genocide, as is the UN Human Rights Commission and the European parliament, not to mention Winston Churchill and 10 US presidents.

In fact, war crimes trials were conducted in Turkey shortly after the founding of the republic, where Ottoman officials were tried—and found guilty—of "exterminating the Armenian nation."

We have made it clear that our resolution in no way targets modem Turkey—its people or its government—for blame or accountability. Turkey is one of our most important allies, whom we back with one of our biggest foreign aid commitments—$610 million this year alone. Furthermore, history clearly shows that the Armenian atrocities occurred in the last days of the Ottoman Empire, long before a new government took hold in Turkey.

Nevertheless, our initial Senate effort to enact a day of remembrance was stopped in its tracks by a determined filibuster. Powerful lobbyists, defense contractors with high dollar stakes in Turkey, along with Turkish officials and their allies in the Senate all teamed up to keep us from even debating the resolution.

It was a classic David and Goliath mismatch. Turkey—with all its clout—versus tiny Armenia, with no embassy, no ambassador and no well-heeled lobbyists.

But look at the ensuing Senate debate—we won on the merits. Not one of our opponents was able to refute the volumes of evidence we offered on the Senate floor: chilling newspaper accounts of the genocide and official Ottoman documents that clearly revealed the murderous intent of its Armenian action.

Yet some of our opponents still say they need more evidence. The truth is, we have 10 times as much documentary evidence on this genocide as we ever had on the "killing fields" of Cambodia. But no one I know stands around on the Senate floor saying, "Sorry, but I just don't have the proof I need on Cambodia."

It is difficult to understand how the US Senate—the same Senate that daily passes resolutions and makes grand speeches about human rights—could turn its back on a million and a half slaughtered Armenians crying out—just to be remembered.

Senator Robert Dole of Kansas is the Republican tender in the Senate.

Denial Embarrasses Turkey's Allies

By M. William Haratunian

From 1915 to 1923 Armenians were victims of this century's first genocide. It was conceived at the highest levels of the Ottoman Turkish government and carried out by its military and provincial irregular forces.

Clearly, Turkey's persistent denial embarrasses Ankara's NATO allies.

For half a century this tragedy was universally recognized as an irrefutable historic fact and was largely unchallenged by Turkey. Then, in the 1960s, the children of genocide survivors erected monuments across the world in memory of their martyred forbears. Alarmed by the public attentionthese memorials created, Turkey mounted an intense international public relations effort to deny the Armenian genocide. This denial campaign, directed mostly at the American public, intensifies each year and is pursued despite overwhelming historical evidence.

Clearly, Turkey's persistent denial embarrasses Ankara's NATO allies, particularly the US. It also enrages Armenian Americans, whose parents and grandparents arrived here as survivors of this genocide.

It was to recognize and honor those killed and those who survived that Armenian Americans petitioned Congress to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Ankara protested at once, threatening to cancel American business contracts in Turkey and to close or restrict the operations of military bases and intelligence installations.

The Senate debate on SJR212, the Armenian Genocide Resolution, was extraordinary. Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole and supporters of the resolution presented an unprecedented array of official documents, contemporaneous news reports, excerpts from statements of genocide historians and international statesmen. This record was virtually unchallenged by Senator Byrd and other opponents of the resolution. Their opposition was based almost solely on the fear of Turkish retaliation and whether the Senate was the appropriate forum to render a judgment about genocide. Nowhere in the Senate debate did the substance of Turkish denial earn a shred of credibility.

Senator Byrd's filibuster prevailed, but Turkey's denial campaign did not. Instead, a legislative record was compiled demonstrating that Armenians were indeed the first victims of genocide in this century.

Turkey's violent opposition to SJR-212 transformed this simple humanitarian gesture honoring the memory of the Armenian victims of genocide into a contemporary political issue, and focused world public opinion on the 75-year-old genocide far more intensely than would have been the case had Turkey stood silent.

In the end, the victims of the Armenian genocide were remembered! During four days of Senate debate, the lessons of man's inhumanity to man were recited with eloquence and conviction. The debate recalled with great poignancy the fate of not only Armenians, but Jews and Cambodians as well. All were victims, during this century, of' despotic regimes that brought shame and dishonor on the nations in whose names they committed the crime of genocide.

M. William Haratunian, a former career foreign service officer, is past chairman of the Armenian Association of America. He was deputy director of the Voice of American, deputy public affairs officer in Thailand and counselor for public affairs in the US embassy in Athens.

Congress Cannot Legislate History

By Senator Robert C. Byrd

I opposed consideration of the "Armenian Genocide" resolution earlier this year because I believed the Senate was treading on dangerous ground, and I will oppose any similar resolution in the future. Though this resolution was commemorative in nature, its ramifications, if passed, would have been far-reaching.

The first of my three principal objections concentrated on the continuing historical debate surrounding this tragic episode. Simply put, historians do not agree on what happened in the Anatolia region of the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923. Scholarly research continues and that is how the facts should be verified, not through legislative mandate. Elected officials cannot legislate history.

My second objection concerned the major foreign policy implications embodied in the resolution, despite its seemingly innocuous nature. Obviously, I was concerned about the effect such a resolution would have on Turkish-American relations. Turkey is important to the United States because it is a trusted ally, occupying a crucial position on NATO's southern flank.

Additionally, the headlines of recent months have been filled with stories of increased ethnic tension and violence in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Transcaucasus region. Some of these disturbances undoubtedly represent the uprising of an oppressed people yearning for freedom and self-determination. Unfortunately, other cases are a reflection of age-old animosity between peoples desiring the same territory. I was convinced that the resolutionwould fan the flames of violence and play into the hands of the extremists within those movements.

My final objection, and one of the most compelling arguments in opposition, centered around the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

In 1986, after nearly 40 years, the Senate approved the Genocide Treaty, the purpose of which was to codify international law with respect to the crime of genocide. The Convention provided that disputes between the contracting parties relating to the interpretation of the Convention, including the question of responsibility of a state for genocide, "shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute."

It was my concern that this resolution simply circumvented the Convention. The resolution called upon the Congress and the president of the United States to proclaim the government of the Ottoman Empire, now the Republic of Turkey, guilty of the crime of genocide. Genocide is the most heinous crime imaginable and it is now a crime punishable under the laws of our country. Yet we are attempting, through a "commemorative resolution," to determine the guilt or innocence of an entire nation. Having finally made the Genocide Convention the law of the land after four decades, it is ironic that we were faced with a resolution which approached the issue by ignoring the Convention.

After several days debating the merits of the "Armenian Genocide" resolution, a majority of Senators decided that the US Congress should not deal with the issue. The answer to the question is a resounding "NO."

Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the former Senate majority leader, is presently chairman of' the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The Resolution Has a Hidden Agenda

By Tunca Iskir

The US Congress should not attempt to legislate history, but should rather leave it to impartial historians. The American Congress is not the proper place to discuss an event of 75 years ago in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire, nor to endorse the unsubstantiated Armenian genocide allegations against the Turkish nation.

The resolution is historically inaccurate. What happened in 1915 was not a genocide but a civil war initiated by the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire in order to establish an exclusively Armenian state in an area where the Armenians were a distinct minority. This civil war erupted when the Armenians collaborated with the enemy of their state, the invading Russian Army, with the hope that the collapse of the Ottoman Empire would lead to the creation of an independent Armenia. During the civil war, the Turkish and Armenian populations of the area suffered heavy losses from epidemics, famine and intercommunal warfare. This resolution acknowledges the loss of life on only the Armenian side. It fails to account for the Turkish dead when their villages and towns were raided and burned.

Contrary to Armenian claims, the overwhelming majority of scholars of Ottoman history reject the genocide allegation, likening the events in eastern Anatolia during World War I to the current situation in Lebanon.

Contradicting the Armenian propaganda again, American observers in Turkey in the time covered by the resolution pinpointed the false information circulate by the Armenians. Rear Admiral Mark Bristol served as US High Commissioner between 1920 and 1924 and then became the first US ambassador to the Republic of Turkey. He served in this post until 1928, traveling extensively in the eastern provinces, and reported on the circulation of false reports in the United States.

Armenians like to cite Ambassador Morgenthau, who never left Istanbul and who returned to the United States in 1915, as validating their claims. He reveals his bias against Turks with statements that they are an inferior race.

What happened in 1915 was not a genocide but a civil war.

This attempt to legislate a decision on an historical controversy was undertaken without giving the charges the proper scrutiny. Often cited are the telegrams of Talat Pasha, which Armenians claim detailed the extermination of their ancestors.

These have been proven to be forgeries. The opening of the Ottoman archives should shed even more light on this era for histori ans, not the Congress, to judge.

Though congressional supporters see the resolution as a commemorative issue, Turkish Americans and friends of Turks in the US know the hidden agenda behind this legislation. It involves laying claim to land in Turkey and annexing it to the Soviet Republic of Armenia.

More than 250 attacks, including some in the US by Armenian terrorists seeking vengeance must also be taken into consideration with this resolution. Terrorists will cite it as justification for their murders.

Instead of dwelling on past historical allegations and controversies, Congress might better devote its time to dealing with the many current and pressing problems both here in the US and the rapidly changing world.

Tunca Iskir is president of the Assembly Associations and a senior partner in a major architectural firm in Washington, DC.