Nermin Aydemir JTW Columnist printable version send your friend message to author add comment ()

Friday, 9 January 2009

A possible intervention against the PKK terrorists hits the headlines recently. Not only Turkish people but the world public opinion appears to pay significant attention to what Turkish officials are going to decide in a few days time. Yet the Armenian attempts to pass a bill approving their genocide claims in the US senate remains to catch the attention of many. The senators seem to be suffering between the US strategic relations with Turks and the Armenian pressure ahead of the elections.

The US is not the first country that the Armenian lobby tries to pass such bill. Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Lithonia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Vatican City and Venezuela are all countries of which parliaments did somehow recognize the so-called genocide.

Not in all countries does such recognition have equal meaning. In Switzerland, one can find himself/herself behind bars just because of denying the genocide claims, which indeed has taken place. The leader of the Turkish Socialist Party, Dogu Perincek, was arrested in July in 2005, after stating that such genocide did not occur. A similar punishment is theoretically also possible in many other countries, including Voltaire’s France, although such a happening did not take place in practice.

Countries like Italy, the Netherlands and Poland remain by stating the “necessity” of the recognition of the so-called genocide by the Turkish assembly. The parliamentary decision does not have a binding character in all the countries. For instance, the decision of the Dutch parliament is recommendatory and not obligatory.

In fact, the process creates significant confusion. What does the lobby achieve through all these decisions through those bills passed by different parliaments across the world? If the Armenians are trying to establish their rightfulness through decisions passed by different parliaments across the world, they are absolutely on a wrong path. Not only the Armenians who are making every effort to pass such resolutions, but also countries accepting these violate the very fundamental rule of law.

The British historian, David Irving had long been on the news agenda last year. Mr. Irving was sentenced by an Austrian court in February last year for denying the Holocaust in 1989. That denying the Holocaust is banned remains to be something outdated, according to many. One may claim being against such repression.  However, such a sentence is to some extend understandable for having a legal basis. All those charges are based on the decisions taken by the Nuremberg trials, which were held between 1945 and 1949, at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. Parties, the Jewish population and the German government are in the same line that the genocide has taken place. Genocide is the most terrible crime in the history of human being and does not have any excuse by any means. Nevertheless, this should not lead to comparing apples and peers.

The Armenian claims remain to be claims, just claims. If we are trying to found genocide on the life histories of grandparents, photos, myths, severe war conditions and inter group clashes; we are obviously following a wrong path.

In fact, the Armenian lobby seems to refute their own hypothesis by trying to find partners instead of bringing the issue to international courts. What the several parliamentarians are doing is something beyond the pale. How can we defend the order of law in other cases if politicians do claim to judge the right and wrong in the Armenian issue, how can we still talk about the rule of law if the Armenian lobby’s pressure overwhelms it.

The issue goes far beyond accepting a single genocide claim. One should consider the greatest responsibility of adhering to the most fundamental principle of rule of law before political gains and stakes in this game.   23 October 2007