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The Armenian Genocide 100 Years Later

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The Armenian Genocide 100 Years Later Historical Origins of International Criminal Law: Volume 1 Morten Bergsmo, CHEAH Wui Ling and YI Ping (editors) PURL: http://www.legal-tools.org/doc/e4e534/ E-Offprint: Lina Laurinaviciute, Regina M. Paulose and Ronald G. Rogo, “The Forgotten: The Armenian Genocide 100 Years Later”, in Morten Bergsmo, CHEAH Wui Ling and YI Ping (editors), Historical Origins of International Criminal Law: Volume 1, FICHL Publication Series No. 20 (2014), Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, Brussels, ISBN 978-82-93081-11-1. First published on 12 December 2014. This publication and other TOAEP publications may be openly accessed and downloaded through the website www.fichl.org. This site uses Persistent URLs (PURL) for all publications it makes available. The URLs of these publications will not be changed. Printed copies may be ordered through online distributors such as www.amazon.co.uk. © Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, 2014. All rights are reserved. PURL: http://www.legal-tools.org/doc/e4e534/ 12 ______ The Forgotten: The Armenian Genocide 100 Years Later* Lina Laurinaviciute,** Regina M. Paulose*** and Ronald G. Rogo**** 12.1. Armenia: Then and Now “My conscience does not accept the denial of the great catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and [...] empathise with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologise to them”.1 Approximately 200 Turkish2 intellectuals orchestrated an internet campaign to apologise for the Armenian genocide 3 carried out by the * The authors would like to thank the Armenian Mission to the United Nations in Geneva for their support of this article. This chapter is dedicated to those who long for justice with regards to the Armenian genocide. ** Lina Laurinaviciute is a Chief Specialist of International Relations Division of the National Courts Administration of the Republic of Lithuania. She holds an LL.M. in International Crime and Justice from the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (‘UNICRI’), Turin, Italy. *** Regina Paulose holds a LL.M. in International Crime and Justice from the University of Torino/UNICRI (2012) and Juris Doctorate from Seattle University (2004). She is an attorney in the US. She is a former Prosecutor in Arizona and Washington state. She is the creator and co-founder of A CONTRARIO ICL, a blog community devoted to international criminal justice issues (www.acontrarioicl.com). **** Ronald G. Rogo is a Lecturer at the University of Nairobi, and a Partner at Rogo & Associates. He holds an LL.M. in International Crime and Justice from UNICRI, Turin, Italy. He also holds an M.A. in Organizational Leadership from Eastern University and a LL.B. (Honours) from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. 1 Nicholas Birch, “Turkish Academics to Apologize for Armenian Genocide”, in Huffington Post, 15 January 2009. 2 “Turkey” and “Ottoman Empire” have been used interchangeably since the period of the Ottoman Empire. The current government in Turkey does not disavow itself from the Ottoman Empire. See Vahakn N. Dadrian, The Key Elements in the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide: A Case Study of Distortion and Falsification, Zoryan Institute, Cambridge, MA, 1999, pp. 5–6. 3 We use the definition of “genocide” as found in Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, where it means “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; FICHL Publication Series No. 20 (2014) – page 379 PURL: http://www.legal-tools.org/doc/e4e534/ Historical Origins of International Criminal Law: Volume 1 Ottoman Turks, which remains controversial to this day. 4 The online apology was quickly dismissed by the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, who stated that there was no necessity for Turkey to apologise.5 The discussion and recognition of these events have continued to cause tension between Armenia and Turkey. Turkey’s position has been to deny the genocide by “minimizing statistics” and “blaming” the victims. 6 Nonetheless, recent speeches by Turkish leaders indicate a possible change in attitude towards Armenia over the genocide is taking place within the government and among its people.7 Despite Turkey’s contention, there are an increasing number of countries stepping forward out of a “moral duty” to recognise the genocide.8 The historical road leading up to the Armenian genocide (considered the first modern genocide)9 is a story that contains multiple accounts from different viewpoints.10 It is also a difficult story to narrate because of the limited access to the documents that exist from the time period.11 It is important for us to consider the historical aspect of this c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”. 4 Birch, see supra note 1. 5 Ibid. 6 Gregory Stanton, “The Cost of Denial”, in Genocide Watch, 23 April 2008. For a full view of Turkey’s position on the genocide, see Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The Armenian Allegations of Genocide: The Issue and Facts”. 7 Constanze Letsch, “Turkish PM Offers Condolences over 1915 Massacre”, in The Guardian, 23 April 2014; see also Cengiz Aktar, “Armenian Genocide: Turkey Has Lost the Battle of the Truth”, Al Jazeera, 24 April 2014. 8 For a historical list of entities that recognised the genocide, see Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and Its Contemporary Legal Ramifications”, in Yale Journal of International Law, 1989, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 221–334; see “Israeli Parliament to Prepare Armenian ‘Genocide’ Recognition Law”, in Today’s Zaman, 24 April 2013. For a list of countries that have recognised the genocide, see Armenian National Committee of America, “Genocide Recognition”. 9 Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 94. 10 We have consulted numerous sources and have found that, depending on the location, texts have different dates for various events that have occurred during this particular time period. 11 Most of the documents are in the possession of the Turkish Government archives. FICHL Publication Series No. 20 (2014) – page 380 PURL: http://www.legal-tools.org/doc/e4e534/ The Forgotten: The Armenian Genocide 100 Years Later genocide prior to our discussion of how the trials came to fruition and their lasting contribution to international criminal law. Through this historical analysis, we suggest that the Armenian genocide is the groundwork upon which the Nuremberg Trials and subsequent tribunals were built.12 Further, we emphasise importance of recognising that the events which occurred in Armenia were the crucial turning point in solidifying “genocide” as the crime of all crimes. 13 As with all the tribunals that have been in existence since the late twentieth century, historical events cannot be separated from the actual trials and determination of the elements to the crimes cannot be completed without proper contextual analysis. Under the rule of Sultan Abdülhamid II, Christians in the Ottoman Empire in the latter part of the nineteenth century faced enormous persecution.14 The Armenians were mainly Christians who were afforded second-class citizenship due to their religion.15 Long before the Congress of Berlin after the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877, the Armenians were seeking to redress inequalities targeting them.16 During the late 1890s the Sultan carried out the “Hamidian massacres” to dissuade Armenians from encouraging Western reforms.17 From 1894 to 1896 approximately 100,000 to 300,000 Armenians were killed.18 The United States (‘US’) President Grover Cleveland, in a statement to the US Senate in 1895, said that such “fanatical brutality” against the Armenians would justify intervention by 12 Justice Robert H. Jackson was the Chief of Counsel for the US during the prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg Trials. He eloquently stated that prior to the Second World War, leaders got away with crimes against humanity. Robert H. Jackson Center, “The Influence of the Nuremberg Trial on International Criminal Law”. 13 We dispense with any debate as to whether there was a genocide. The term was in fact created because of the Armenian genocide. Further, the consequence for denying the genocide exonerates those responsible for it. See Roger W. Smith, Eric Markusen and Robert Jay Lifton, “Professional Ethics and the Denial of Armenian Genocide”, in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 1995, vol. 9, no. 1, p. 13. 14 Alfred de Zayas, “The Genocide Against the Armenians 1915–1923 and the Relevance of the 1948 Genocide Convention”, in Armenian Review, 2012, vol. 53, nos. 1–4, pp. 85–120. 15 Arthur Grenke, God, Greed, and Genocide: The Holocaust Through the Centuries, New Academia Publishing, Washington, DC, 2005, p. 51. 16 Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, Henry Holt, New York, 2006, p. 36. 17 Rouben Paul Adalian, “Hamidian (Armenian) Massacres”, Armenian National Institute. 18 Michael Bobelian, Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-long Struggle for Justice, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2009, p. 20. FICHL Publication Series No. 20 (2014) – page 381 PURL: http://www.legal-tools.org/doc/e4e534/ Historical Origins of International Criminal Law: Volume 1 European countries, as “agents of the Christian world” to prevent “dreadful occurrences” that have “lately shocked civilizations”.19 European countries such as Britain, France and Russia asked Sultan Abdülhamid II to change his treatment of the Armenians.
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