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PO Box 809
Washington, DC 20044 USA
EXECUTIVE BOARD:
EXECUTIVE BOARD:
President
Gregory
Stanton
IAGSPresident@
genocidescholars.org
First Vice-President
Steven
Leonard Jacobs
sjacobs@genocidescholars.org
Second Vice-President
Alex Hinton
ahinton@genocidescholars.org
Secretary
Marc I.
Sherman
msherman@genocidescholars.org
Treasu rer
Jack Nusan
Porter
jporter@genocidescholars.org
ADVISORY COUNCIL:
Joyce Apsel, USA
Jaa5@nyu.edu
Peter
Balakian, USA
Pbalakian@mail.colgate.edu
Daniel Feierstein, Argentina
dfeiers@gmail.com
Ben Kiernan,
USA
Ben.Kiernan@yale.edu
Henry Theriault, USA
Henry.Theriault@worcester.edu
Israel Charny, Israel
Immediate Past President
encygeno@mail.com
SPECIAL
ADVISORS: Ambassador John Evans
evansinusa@aol.com
Amy
Hudnall, USA
hudnallac@appstate.edu
Helen Jarvis, Australia, Cambodia
HelenJarvis@online.com.kh
Lisabeth Meyers, USA
Lisabethm@gmail.com
Jackson Sherratt, USA, Canada
Jackson@jacksonsherratt.com
James Waller, USA
jwaller@genocidescholars.org
IAGS JOURNAL:
Genocide Studies and Prevention
gspjrnl@yahoo.com
Chair of Joint Journal Committee:
Maureen
Hiebert
Maureen.hiebert@ucalgary.ca
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Rebecca Parson, USA
rparson@genocidescholars.org |
March 7, 2009
Dear President Obama:
We write this open
letter to you as the leading international organization of scholars who
study genocide. As April approaches, we urge you to “refer to the mass
slaughter of Armenians as genocide in your commemorative statement,” as you
urged President George W. Bush to do in a letter dated March 18, 2005.
On January 19, 2008 you voiced your conviction “that the Armenian Genocide
is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a
widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical
evidence.” We hope that you will be able to affirm that conviction this
April.
We are confident that you know and value the historical record on the
Armenian Genocide, but want to underscore that this human rights history was
a watershed for the modern age because:
1) it was the template for all modern genocide --Adolph Hitler was so
impressed with the Turkish extermination of the Armenians that it figured in
his own genocidal plans, as he exhorted his military advisors in 1939, “who
today, after all, remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?”;
2) Raphael Lemkin, who created the concept of genocide as a crime of
international law, did so in large part on the basis of what happened to the
Armenians in 1915;
3) the 94-year denial of the Armenian Genocide has emboldened perpetrators
ever since;
4) American efforts to rescue the Armenians from massacre from the 1 890s
through the 1 920s set the stage for the modern era of human rights activism,
and is a proud and important chapter in U. S. history.
We are concerned that Turkey’s lobbying efforts, which are now in full
force, will lead to a repetition of the H. Res. 106 debacle of late 2007,
when the President, as usual, got the resolution blocked from a House vote.
A merely symbolic commemorative resolution, which looked like it would pass
in the House, was subverted by unethical pressure, coercion, and cajoling by
Turkey, a member of NATO and home of an important airbase. The intellectual
freedom of our country cannot be held hostage by a foreign government,
particularly by one with the worst human rights record in NATO. Twenty other
nations, including NATO members France, Poland, Greece, and Germany, have
disregarded Turkey’s coercion, issued commemorative statements, and proven
that Turkey’s threats are nothing more than threats.
By acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, you would demonstrate that you are
that “leader” you referred to on January 19, 2008, who “speaks truthfully
about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides.” You
would signal a new chapter in U.S. diplomacy. You would also honor the truth
of our own valiant history, which saw brave and selfless Foreign Service
Officers risk their lives rescuing Armenians during the Genocide and
compiling the more than 40,000 pages of documentation now housed in the
National Archives.
Turkey’s call for an “historical commission” to study the events of 1915 is
an attempt to put genocide deniers on an equal level with genuine scholars.
The IAGS passed a resolution in 1997 unanimously recognizing the Ottoman
massacres of Armenians as genocide. Turkey’s latest proposal for an
“historical commission” is just another red herring of denial drawn across
the bloody scent of the Armenian genocide.
Hayk Demoyan, Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute in the
Republic of Armenia, recently wrote: “International activism for the
recognition of the Armenian genocide would be regarded as a humanitarian
rather than a political act, the culmination of which is targeting the
global prevention of new crimes against humanity. This is the highest value
for humankind, much higher than any strategic partnershi p.”
We believe that acknowledgments of the Armenian Genocide are an important
step toward ending the final stage of every genocide, denial, which
continues to inflict suffering on the group that has been victimized— an
inhuman assault on memory perpetrated by the Turkish government for more
than 90 years.
We also believe that it is in the interest of the Turkish people and their
future as participants in international, democratic discourse to acknowledge
the responsibility of a previous government for the genocide of the Armenian
people, just as the German government and people have done in the case of
the Holocaust. Over the past decade a growing number of Turkish scholars,
writers, intellectuals, and publishers have been risking imprisonment and
assassination to tell the truth about the Armenian Genocide. They understand
that facing and accepting the history of one’s country, however dark, is an
essential part of growing a healthy democracy.
We believe that security and historical truth are not in conflict, and it is
in the interest of the United States to support the principles of human
rights that are at the core of American democracy.
Sincerely,
Greg Stanton
Gregory Stanton, President
International Association of Genocide Scholars
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