10/21 MetroWest: Experts, survivor explore Armenian genocide

Experts, survivor explore Armenian genocide

By Peter Reuell, Daily News staff

Sun Oct 21, 2007, 12:07 AM EDT

ARLINGTON –

Even today, more than 90 years after the mass killings, the forced relocation, the years spent in squalor in what was essentially a refugee camp in the desert, the memories are sharp, like a fresh wound, to Kevork Norian.

When he talks about surviving the Armenian genocide, the 89-year-old Arlington resident closes his eyes, as though wanting not to remember, but being unable to forget, and matter-of-factly describes the horrors his family only narrowly avoided.

"My name is Kervork Norian and I am a survivor of two genocides," he says. "How did I survive? My father was in manufacturing clothing. When the Turks entered the war (World War I) they drafted two million soldiers, and they need clothing, so they took my father ... and the families of those draftees were exempt from deportation. So that's why we survived."

Norian, born at the end of WWI, became one of thousands of Armenians caught up in what would later become known as the Armenian genocide - the organized killing, beginning in 1915, of more than 1.5 million Armenians and forced deportation of thousands more.

Though recognized by most scholars and historians as meeting the traditional definition of genocide, the killings have returned to the headlines in recent months.

Earlier this year, Watertown officials pulled out of an Anti-Defamation League program because of the organization's refusal to recognize the killings as genocide. Watertown has a large Armenian population.

The question of whether to recognize the genocide has in recent weeks erupted into an international controversy, as Democrats in Congress push ahead with a bill to recognize the genocide, while Turkish officials threaten to withdraw their support for the U.S. military in the region if the bill passes.

Though it now appears a vote on the resolution is unlikely, among Bay State lawmakers, the question isn't up for debate - the genocide should be recognized.

All Massachusetts representatives co-sponsored the House resolution, while U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy co-sponsored a similar bill in the Senate.

Even newly elected Rep. Niki Tsongas believes the genocide should be recognized.

"Other countries have acknowledged dark chapters in their past, and it's time for Turkey to do the same," she said in a statement. "The Armenians and the descendants of those who were victimized deserve justice."

For local Armenians, though, the issue of whether to recognize the killings as genocide is simply a question of human rights.

"This has been a continuous struggle by Armenians," said David Boyajian, a community activist in Newton who lost several family members in the genocide. "It did not just come up now. The Turks have been stonewalling. You can't just reward them for stonewalling and say 90 years have passed.

"This is a human rights issue. It's not just about the Armenians. The ADL issue and the resolution are human rights issues that create more awareness of genocide."

"I think it's more important today than it has ever been," said Sharistan Melkonian, chairwoman of the Armenian National Committee of Eastern Massachusetts. "The U.S. Congress and the administration has stood firm in its mission to end the genocide in Darfur, but at the same time, they are denying the Armenian genocide."

Melkonian dismissed worries about Turkey's threats to cut off support for the U.S. military's operations in the region if the resolution passes. News reports have said as much as 70 percent of the war material and supplies for American troops fighting in Iraq pass through military bases in Turkey.

"What kind of an ally imposes a gag rule on the U.S. Congress?" she asked. "It's unbelievable to me that we would allow that kind of intimidation to stand in our way of standing up for what's right."

Ultimately, she believes, neither country will be able to move beyond the genocide debate until it is recognized as the crime it was.

"You have to get closure," she said. "Closure is part of it both for the Armenians and for the Turks. They need to feel closure with their history, but it is also the starting point to be able to move on in terms of security in the region and in terms of the international community taking a serious bite at ending genocide."

Even among many Turks, the killings are considered a genocide.

"My personal impression is the lack of morality from the Turkish," said Taner Akcam, a history professor at the University of Minnesota's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and a Turk.

"What the majority of Armenians want is a recognition ... and an apology," he said. "That would solve 70 or 80 percent of the problem."

Why hasn't it happened yet?

The roots of Turkey's denial of the genocide, Akcam said, lay with the founding of the Turkish republic in 1923.

"The founders of the republic were members of the party which organized the genocide," he said. "They either participated in the killing, or they became rich by plundering Armenian property. It's not easy for a state or a nation to call its founding fathers murderers and thieves."

Since the genocide ended, Akcam added, the government has relied on the population's fear of a plan proposed by the British in the wake of World War I to break up the nation as an additional method to suppress debate.

The international community's pressure for the nation to recognize the genocide, the government claims, is simply a ruse for Western powers to break up the nation.

"Every attempt is a historical reminder of the partitioning plan," he said. "Any reference (to the genocide) is a cover-up plan for the partitioning. Turkey considers the genocide itself as the discussion of the genocide as a threat to its national security."

(Peter Reuell can be reached at 508-626-4428, or at preuell@cnc.com)

Source: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/homepage/x2130892944