Genocide Commission And Genocide Denial By Armenian Genocide-Denying US, Turkey And Israel
By Dr Gideon Polya
13 October, 2007
Countercurrents.orgA great victory for truth over repugnant Genocide Denial has just been achieved in Washington - with a vote of 27 to 21, the US Congress House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee has adopted House of Representative Resolution 106, the Armenian Genocide Resolution that acknowledges the World War 1 Armenian Holocaust as an Armenian Genocide. This was achieved in the face of intense lobbying by the Bush Administration, Apartheid Israel, the Racist Zionist (RZ) Lobby and the Turkish Government (see: http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=23650 ).
Now decent people hope that the Resolution will survive the intense lobbying of the genocide-denying Racist Bush-ites, Racist Zionists and Turkish lobbyists to be passed by the House of Representatives.
There is much semantic confusion about the term “genocide” that can be simply dispelled by considering the International Law legal definition accepted by all countries of the world and as set out by the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ), QUOTE: “Article II. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 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.”
Under this definition the Armenian Holocaust (1.0-1.5 million dead) was clearly a genocide, an Armenian Genocide – notwithstanding the spin, falsehood and Genocide-Denial of Bush US Administration and the Turkish and Israeli Governments.
However we can also get second opinions on the actuality of the Armenian Genocide from scholars in the area of genocide studies.
Thus Australian genocide scholar Professor Colin Tatz who headed up a Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies at Sydney’s Macquarie University was unequivocal in his condemnation of Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide (see:
http://www.zoryaninstitute.org/Table_Of_Contents/main_genocide.htm ), QUOTE: "The Turkish denial [of the Armenian Genocide] is probably the foremost example of historical perversion. With a mix of academic sophistication and diplomatic thuggery -- of which we at Macquarie University have been targets -- the Turks have put both memory and history into reverse gear."
A classic book on genocide is that by Frank Chalk. and Kurt Jonassohn (1990), The History and Sociology of Genocide. Analyses and Case Studies (Yale University Press, New Haven). The authors state unequivocally in their preface to the chapter of the Armenian Genocide that, QUOTE : “The genocide of the Armenians in 1915 was the first of the modern ideologically-motivated genocides”.
I recently published a huge analysis of avoidable mortality (avoidable death, excess mortality, excess death, deaths that should not have happened) entitled “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007) (see: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ ) from which I have obtained (p60) the following relevant snippets about Armenia: “8th century BC, Armenian settlement; 6th-4th century BC, Persian tributary; 330BC, conquered by Alexander; subsequently part of Seleucid Syria; 190BC, Roman conquest of Syria; Armenian independence; 69-67BC, Roman conquest; 1st century, Christian conversion (the oldest Christian state) … 1405, Ottoman Turks invaded; 16th century, under Turkish rule; 1828, Russia took Eastern Armenia from Persia; 1894, Turkish massacres; 1915, commencement of the Armenian Genocide, coinciding with the Anglo-French Dardanelles invasion at Gallipoli; 1 million Armenians were killed or died from deportation (still denied by Turkey); 1921, Russo-Turkish Treaty; Armenia part of USSR; 1988, devastating earthquake; 1988, fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian region of Azerbaijan; 1991, Armenian independence; continuing Turkish and Azerbaijan blockades.”
Holocaust Denial and Genocide Denial are utterly repugnant – indeed they are so repugnant that Denial of the Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) is punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment in Austria and by lengthy prison terms in some other Western European countries. Indeed France and Belgium have recently extended holocaust denial criminalization to include denial of the Armenian Genocide and Germany has proposed that the EU criminalize denial and minimization of any recent genocides and holocausts (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12483/26/ ).
Even more repugnant is Holocaust Commission and Genocide Commission occurring concomitant with Holocaust Denial and Genocide Denial – but that is precisely what the Armenian Genocide-denying Bush US, Turkey and Apartheid Israel are currently engaged in. The post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Palestinian , Iraqi and Afghan Territories now total 0.3 million, 2.0 million and 3.2 million, respectively, and the refugees total 7 million, 4 million and 3.7 million, respectively – a Palestinian Holocaust, a Palestinian Genocide, an Iraqi Holocaust, an Iraqi Genocide and an Afghan Holocaust, and an Afghan Genocide by any sensible comparative measure (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17139/42/ ). Turkey has had a sustained program of linguistic, cultural and physical repression of its Kurdish minority as well as being involved in the US-inflicted, continuing Iraqi Genocide.
History denied yields history repeated. Genocide denied yields genocide repeated. The World must stand up and resolutely oppose both Genocide Commission and Genocide Denial.
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ ).
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