Genocide Vote Strikes Raw Nerve With Turks, Armenians

Oct 19, 09:45 AM

Current Headlines: By Peter Roper, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

Oct. 19--When a House committee approved a nonbinding resolution this month denouncing Turkey for alleged genocide in the death of possibly 1.5 million Armenians during World War I, lawmakers touched a raw nerve with both Turks and Armenians, who remain bitterly divided over what happened 90 years ago during the last years of the Ottoman Empire.

"Turks understand that many Armenians died in this tragedy, but so did many Turks," said Huseyin Sarper, a Turkish engineering professor in Pueblo. "But to call this a genocide? There was no plan to exterminate the Armenians. I don't believe that. No one wants to be compared to the Nazis (in Germany). That's why we care about this resolution in Congress."

Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, allowing war supplies to be sent to U.S. troops in Iraq through air bases in Turkey. So that nation's anger over the congressional resolution drew the attention of House lawmakers this week.

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will bring the genocide measure to the floor for a vote, some key Democrats, such as Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., have said it lacks the votes to pass and support is dwindling as Turkey's supporters urge the House to back away from the divisive measure.

"Why Congress thinks that now is the time to address this, I don't know," said political science professor Robert Lee of Colorado College. "Certainly, Turkey still has to come to terms with what happened to the Armenians. Right now, anyone who talks about Armenian genocide in Turkey can be arrested."

At issue is what took place in eastern Turkey between 1915-18, during World War I, when the Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany and Austro-Hungary in fighting Russia, France, Great Britain and later, the U.S.

Historians agree that Sultan Hamid authorized the deportation of Armenians from their traditional home in eastern Turkey, afraid the Christian minority would join ranks with the Russians on that border.

Armenian refugees and European observers said the deportations turned into massacres as refugees were driven from their homes toward the desert country of what would become Iraq.

Henry Morganthau, the U.S. ambassador in Istanbul at the time, sent dispatches to the State Department in 1916, saying he was getting witness reports of thousands of Armenians being massacred in the east. Similar dispatches were received by the British government. An Internet search on the topic Armenian genocide will produce Web sites devoted to photographs and personal accounts of the victims, which Armenians have labeled the First Genocide of the 20th Century.

Morganthau, in his autobiography, called it the "murder of a nation."

Sarper said the West overlooks the fact that Turkey was engaged in fighting Russia in the east, and Britain on the Gallipoli coast and in Palestine. "The Armenians were not just helpless victims. They were armed and were in revolt. That's how Turks feel about what happened. It was a tragedy for both sides."

President Woodrow Wilson wanted to establish a large Armenian nation in eastern Turkey following World War I, but the post-war national government of Mustafa Kemal did not allow it. The current Armenia, on Turkey's northeast border, has cold relations with Turkey and the border usually is closed. Small Armenian terrorist groups killed Turkish diplomats in the 1970s.

Mark Gose, an associate professor of international relations at Colorado State University-Pueblo, was an Air Force political adviser in Europe in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He said Turkey is extremely sensitive on the subject of Armenia.

"Just look at what happened last year when France approved a resolution recognizing the genocide and making it a crime to deny it," Gose said. "Turkey cut off some major business relationships with France and a sizable number of Turks are now soured on the idea of joining the European Union."

Gose said the U.S. depends on air bases in Incirlik and Izmir, Turkey, to provide support to forces in Iraq. To jeopardize that supply route with a congressional resolution on the Armenian genocide right now seems "asinine" to Gose.

"You noticed the Turkish Parliament this week voted to authorize military attacks into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebel groups," he said. "We certainly don't want that to happen but I think the Turks are using this confrontation to get our attention."

Earlier this year, an association of Turkish historians announced their intentions to meet with their Armenian counterparts in order to review the historical facts around what happened. Gose said the country is trying to come to terms with what was done to its Armenian minority during the first world war.

Lee noted that Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for literature, was charged with insulting the nation when he told a Swiss interviewer that Turkey had killed 1 million Armenians.

"Turkey is a society where this can't be discussed yet, but it is moving that way," he said.

Sarper, who grew up in Instanbul, said Turks are not taught about the Armenian deportation in school.

"Turks should be but we aren't," he said. "The U.S. did things that were terrible, too, such as slavery and how Indians were treated. But the difference is, Americans talk about that. We can do that in this country."

-----

To see more of The Pueblo Chieftain, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.chieftain.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.