“Freedom Or Death”: the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Justice for the Armenian Genocide
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“Freedom or Death”: The Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Justice for the Armenian Genocide Lilit Zeltzburg 2 “Freedom or Death”: The Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Justice for the Armenian Genocide Lilit Zeltzburg 12293717 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MA HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES University of Amsterdam Faculty of Humanities 2021 Supervisor: Dr. Nanci Adler Word count: 21633 words 3 Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………… 4 Introduction ……………………………………………………………. 5 Theoretical framework ………………………………………………………. 6 Methodology …………………………………………………………………. 12 Scope and limitations ………………………………………………………... 14 Chapter 1: A Century of Struggle …………………………………… 18 Victimisation and proto-justice …………………………………………….. 18 Politics and terror, recognition and denial ……………………………….... 23 Chapter 2: The Armenian Revolutionary Federation ……………… 30 History ………………………………………………………………………... 32 Ideology ………………………………………………………………………. 39 Chapter 3: United Armenia, Nationalism, and Justice ……………... 50 United Armenia ……………………………………………………………… 50 Nationalism …………………………………………………………………... 59 Justice ………………………………………………………………………… 63 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………... 65 Bibliography …………………………………………………………… 68 4 Abstract The Armenian Genocide is a ‘non-case’ of transitional justice, and it continues to be denied by Turkey. The members of the large Armenian diaspora created by this genocide carry the legacy of their ancestors’ victimisation with them to this day. Throughout the century since the genocide, they have demanded justice for the victims of the genocide in various ways, and they hold differing views on justice. This thesis uses methods associated with oral history to research the perspectives on justice held by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation/Dashnaktsutyun, an international socialist and nationalist political organisation that can be seen as the main political representation of Armenians in diaspora. By outlining the history of the general Armenian struggle for justice and the historical and ideological background of the ARF, the groundwork is laid upon which, consequently, the ARF’s perspectives on justice can be analysed. This thesis finds that the ARF formulates its own central aim, namely the creation of a United Armenian nation-state, as the ultimate form of justice for the Armenian Genocide, seeing no other resolution as truly ‘just’. The thesis also concludes that existing transitional justice infrastructures are ill-equipped to offer group justice. 5 Introduction During the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was falling apart. At this time, around 1915, a genocide that led to the deaths of over a million people was carried out on the empire’s Greek, Assyrian, and Armenian minorities. This was to become one of the most notorious examples of genocide before the Holocaust, with some calling it (erroneously) “the first genocide of the twentieth century”.1 The victims of this genocide were expelled from their homes and scattered across the globe. One of the reasons this genocide is so infamous is the fact that until this day, Turkey, the successor of the Ottoman Empire, upholds a policy of denial of the genocide. The many victims, survivors, and their descendants have not received any semblance of (official) justice for the trauma they have suffered. Throughout the century since the end of the genocide, different calls for justice have been made, in many different forms, ranging from recognition of the genocide, to the payment of reparations, to the yielding of land to the Republic of Armenia. The means through which these calls have been transmitted have also varied from building societal awareness, to lobbying through political means, to – briefly – even terrorist violence. Still, all of these calls have been unsuccessful, and the subject remains taboo within Turkey. Since the Nuremberg Trials and the subsequent rise of transitional justice as a concept and a field of research, there appears to be a general presumption that transitional justice should follow genocide and other instances of mass categorical violence and human rights violations. The Armenian Genocide is a non-case of transitional justice, as no justice has (successfully) been offered to the survivors and their descendants. Among these people, the trauma is still very much on the surface of their experience, and they have different ideas of what justice should look like one hundred years after the genocide. However, little research has been done into what exactly those ideas of justice look like. To that end, an interesting starting point would be the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) or Dashnaktsutyun, which is considered to be the foremost political representation of the Armenian diaspora. At present, the ARF has very little formal political influence in the Republic of Armenia; however, it has profoundly shaped the lives of Armenians in diaspora. Considering that of the total eleven million Armenians living in the 1 David Olusoga, “Dear Pope Francis, Namibia was the 20th century’s first genocide,” The Guardian, April 18th, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/18/pope-francis-armenian-genocide-first-20th-century- namibia 6 world, just under three million live in the Republic of Armenia and approximately eight million live in the diaspora,2 the organisation can arguably still be seen as one of the most important groups, if not the most important group, involved in international advocacy for the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and their descendants. This makes the perspectives on justice held by the ARF and its members particularly relevant. Therefore, this thesis will focus on the question: how does the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s historical struggle for justice for the Armenian Genocide reflect the organisation and its members’ perspectives on the concept of justice? Theoretical framework Conceptions of transitional justice The study of transitional justice is a burgeoning field, and there is much discussion on the history of and modern practices in the topic. One of the most renowned authorities in the field, Ruti G. Teitel, provides the following definition of transitional justice: “Transitional justice can be defined as the conception of justice associated with periods of political change, characterized by legal responses to confront the wrongdoings of repressive predecessor regimes.”3 According to Makau Mutua, another expert in the field, transitional justice seeks to stabilize a postconflict (sic) society through temporary measures that signal a commitment to addressing the abuses of the past. […] The point is that in order to move forward to an inclusive and fair society, no major party can be left behind. Those who have been aggrieved must find justice in order to let go of the hatreds of the past. But equally important is the place of the perpetrators of the abusive past in the future of the society. While justice needs to be done, deep concessions must be made by each side in order to move forward to a shared and common future.4 Although the birth of modern transitional justice can be pinned around World War I, the concept evolved into the specific, international phenomenon that we currently understand it as 2 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, “General Information about Republic of Armenia,” MFA of Armenia, accessed 29th September, 2019, https://www.mfa.am/en/overview; The Big School Encyclopedia [Dprotsakan metz hanragitaran], vol. 2, “Spyurk [Diaspora],” Yerevan: Armenian Encyclopedia [Haykakan Hanragitaran], 2010. 3 Ruti G. Teitel, “Transitional Justice Genealogy,” Harvard Human Rights Journal 16 (2003): 69. 4 Makau Mutua, “What is the Future of Transitional Justice?” International Journal of Transitional Justice 9, no. 1 (2015): 2. 7 after the end of World War II. The Nuremberg trials marked the transformation of post-war justice from a mostly national to a mostly international phenomenon, and from sanctions being aimed at nations to a focus on individuals and their responsibility for the events.5 After the end of the Cold War, which was accompanied by an international wave of political liberalisation, multiple conceptions of justice emerged that were based not only on the rule of law, but on more pragmatic principles aimed at advancing legitimacy. This led to the development of alternative forms of justice directed at truth-seeking and accountability.6 During this time, the phenomenon of truth commissions, which were created for the investigation and documentation of human rights abuses, emerged. In this period in transitional justice, the focus widened from individual legal accountability to include more community-based reconciliation, turning the idea of forgiveness into a political act. The goal was not so much to establish the rule of law, as to preserve peace. Moreover, transitional justice also became viewed as a way to help victims as individuals recover from their trauma. In the words of Teitel, “[transitional] justice became a form of dialogue between victims and their perpetrators.”7 Currently, transitional justice is in a period of expansion and normalisation. Whereas in the past it was viewed as a phenomenon associated with extraordinary conditions, transitional justice has now been institutionalised and stabilised with the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court.8 In addition, whereas in the past there appeared to be a tension between the search for truth and the struggle for justice, in this millennium