‘Better late than never’: Why the anticipated US recognition of the Armenian Genocide is significant

A US classification of Ottoman Turkey's campaign against the Armenian people as genocide will be a first step in achieving long sought-after justice, experts say. (Alamy)
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Updated 26 April 2021
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‘Better late than never’: Why the anticipated US recognition of the Armenian Genocide is significant

  • Ethnic Armenians watching closely for signs of formal genocide recognition by US President Biden
  • Armenians wonder if Ottoman Turkey’s crimes set a precedent for subsequent mass killings

DUBAI: Armenians mark April 24 each year as a day of sorrow. It was on this date in 1915 when the Ottoman Empire launched the first in a brutal succession of atrocities against the ethnic group living under its dominion, going on to kill more than 1 million and driving many more into exile.

To this day, modern Turkey refuses to acknowledge the crimes committed during the twilight of the ancient regime.

Whether living in the Middle East, North America, Russia or modern-day Armenia, it is likely every Armenian has a parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent who witnessed the genocide firsthand.

This year, many of them will be watching closely for signs of formal recognition from the US government.

“Virtually every Armenian alive today is a descendant of a survivor of the Armenian Genocide,” said Chris Bohjalian, the New York Times bestselling author of “The Sandcastle Girls.” His sweeping historical love story, published in 2012, draws on his own Armenian heritage and the experiences of his grandparents.

“The Ottoman Empire systematically annihilated 1.5 million of its Armenian citizens, plus 300,000 Assyrians and countless Greeks, and that was after exterminating 250,000 Armenians a generation earlier in the Hamidian massacres. Moreover, Turkey denies the blood on the hands of its Ottoman predecessor,” he told Arab News.

On that spring day in the early months of the First World War, Ottoman authorities rounded up and executed several hundred Armenian intellectuals. In the weeks that followed, thousands of ordinary Armenians were forced from their homes and sent on death marches across the Mesopotamian desert.

“The day means an enormous amount to Armenians because we are grieving our ancestors, the loss of much of our homeland, and our culture in eastern Turkey — and we are grieving it all as an open wound because Turkey has never acknowledged the crime and much of the world doesn’t even know it occurred — or its magnitude, if they know a little bit.”

In fact, Bohjalian wonders whether the Nazi Holocaust, which came a quarter of a century later, would have occurred without the precedent of the Armenian Genocide.




A picture released by the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute dated 1915 purportedly shows soldiers standing over skulls of victims from the Armenian village of Sheyxalan in the Mush valley, on the Caucasus front during the First World War. (STR/AGMI/AFP)

“It might have. But in ‘Justifying Genocide,’ scholar Stefan Ihrig argues convincingly that the Armenian Genocide made the Holocaust more likely. The most quoted line from my novel ‘The Sandcastle Girls,’ is this: ‘There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?’ So, I believe we still have lessons to learn,” he added.

Indeed, the parallel is often drawn between the Armenian Genocide and the many other mass displacements and wholesale slaughters that followed over the course of the 20th century.

Joseph Kechichian, senior fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, in Riyadh, told Arab News: “(Former German leader Adolf) Hitler is famous for having used the term, ‘who remembers the Armenian nation?’ when he embarked on his own murderous deeds.

“One supposes that the other significant consequence of the Armenian Genocide is the denial that successive Turkish governments practiced, even if the last Ottoman rulers acknowledged it and actually tried a number of officials who were found guilty.

“Contentious does not even begin to explain the hurt that Armenians feel, for denial translates into a second genocide — albeit a psychological one. Eventually, righteous Turks — and there are a lot of them — will own up to the dark chapters of their history and come to terms with it. But it seems that we are not there yet,” he said.

Turkey acknowledges that many Armenians were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during the First World War but disputes the figures and denies that the killings were orchestrated or constitute a genocide.

THENUMBER

* 1.5m - Highest estimate of Armenian deaths by massacre, starvation or exhaustion.

Kechichian’s own paternal grandmother was among the victims. “Imagine how growing up without a grandmother — and in my orphaned father’s case, a mother — affects you,” he added.

“We never kissed her hand, not even once, and she was always missed. We spoke about her all the time and my late father had teary eyes each and every time he thought of his mother.”

Almost every Armenian family has a similar story to tell.

“But we are believers and pray for the souls of those lost. We also ask the Lord to forgive those who committed the atrocities and enlighten their successors so that they too can find peace. Denial is ugly and unbecoming and it hurts survivors and their offspring, no matter the elapsed time,” Kechichian said.

For Armen Sahakyan, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America — Western Region, the genocide never really ended.

“It continues to this very day in Turkey and Azerbaijan’s ongoing attempts to attack, empty, and ultimately erase the presence of Armenians in their ancient homeland,” he told Arab News, referring to last year’s Nagorno-Karabakh war.

“The Armenian Genocide is Turkey’s ‘original sin,’ setting the stage for over a century of human rights violations and repression against all dissidents of the Turkish state and undermining its own democratic future.”

READ MORE

US President Joe Biden would become the first US president to recognize the systematic killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 onwards in modern-day Turkey as a “genocide,” a step already taken by the Senate and the House of Representatives in 2019. More here.

According to Sahakyan, without a truthful, just, and comprehensive resolution of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey stands no chance of becoming a reliable ally of the West and “will continue its destructive domestic as well as foreign policy throughout the wider Mediterranean.”

US President Joe Biden has indicated he will officially recognize the displacement and slaughter of the Armenian people in 1915 as a genocide — a move that would mark a significant break with past administrations, ever cautious not to offend their nominal NATO ally, Turkey.




US President Joe Biden has indicated he will officially recognize the displacement and slaughter of the Armenian people in 1915 as a genocide. (AFP/File Photo)

Always quick on the draw, the Turkish government has given warning that the US “needs to respect international law.”

Speaking recently to broadcaster Haberturk, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said: “Statements that have no legal binding will have no benefit, but they will harm ties. If the United States wants to worsen ties, the decision is theirs.”

Bohjalian said recognition from Washington would mean a great deal. “It would thrill me. But will we ever see justice? We may see the word ‘genocide’ used by a US president on April 24 this year, but will we ever get back Van? Ararat? Shusha? Not in my lifetime. Nevertheless, I hope with all my heart that Biden uses the word ‘genocide.’”

Sahakyan noted that such a recognition from the White House — following on the heels of 2019’s Congressional resolutions — would be the culmination of a century of tireless work by the Armenian-American community and friends of Armenia.

“It must inform US policy, at every level, including in supporting Armenia — a blockaded, landlocked, partitioned, genocide-survivor state — against continued attempts by Ankara and Baku to complete this crime.




Armenian orphans being deported from Turkey in around 1920. (Shutterstock/File Photo)

“The US recognition of the Armenian Genocide would also be a tribute to America’s own heroic role in saving hundreds of thousands of survivors of the genocide through the Near East Relief,” he said.

A century on, the genocide remains a landmark event in modern history and one that besmirches the character of Turkey even today, said Peter Balakian, author of “The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response” — another New York Times bestseller.

He told Arab News: “Turkey has shown no apology, let alone restitution and reparation. Other nations have demanded that Turkey deal with the Armenian Genocide aftermath, but it seems that this will only happen when Turkey can develop a true democracy in which its government can foster a culture of self-criticism and minority and human rights.”

For Balakian, recognition is the first step, no matter how long it takes. “We have waited for some semblance of justice for over a century,” he added.

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Twitter: @CalineMalek


Trump calls for ‘unconditional’ 30-day Russia-Ukraine ceasefire

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Trump calls for ‘unconditional’ 30-day Russia-Ukraine ceasefire

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump called Thursday for a month-long unconditional ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, with any breaches punishable by sanctions.
“Talks with Russia/Ukraine continue. The US calls for, ideally, a 30-day unconditional ceasefire,” Trump said on his Truth Social network shortly after speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions.”
Trump said that “both countries will be held accountable for respecting the sanctity of these direct negotiations” to halt the conflict that started when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The US president said he wanted any ceasefire to then build to a “lasting peace.”
“It can all be done very quickly, and I will be available on a moment’s notice if my services are needed.”
Trump opened talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in February in a bid to end the war that he had previously pledged to end within 24 hours of starting his second term.
But he has shown growing impatience, first with Zelensky and more recently with Putin as the fighting has continued.
Trump and other top US officials have stepped up warnings in recent weeks that Washington is prepared to walk away from its role as a broker if there is no progress soon.
Zelensky said on social media that he had told Trump Thursday that Ukraine was ready for talks on the war with Russia “in any format” but insisted that there first had to be a full ceasefire.


US VP Vance says India-Pakistan conflict ‘fundamentally none of our business’

Updated 5 min 26 sec ago
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US VP Vance says India-Pakistan conflict ‘fundamentally none of our business’

WASHINGTON: US Vice President JD Vance on Thursday said Washington wanted to see a “de-escalation” in a worsening conflict between India and Pakistan, but that it was “fundamentally none of our business.”
“What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it,” said Vance, who has been a proponent of US disengagement from international conflicts, in an interview with Fox News.


Senegalese lawmakers weigh corruption cases against former ministers

Updated 58 min 10 sec ago
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Senegalese lawmakers weigh corruption cases against former ministers

DAKAR: Senegalese lawmakers on Thursday began debating whether to allow several former ministers to face charges before a special court over accusations they embezzled funds meant for the country’s fight against COVID-19.

Senegal’s National Assembly is controlled mainly by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s party, elected in March last year on a promise to change how the West African country is run compared to his predecessors.

Faye has made the fight against corruption a policy priority and has launched investigations into the administration of Macky Sall, president from 2012 for 12 years.

But the opposition has slammed the moves as a “witch hunt.”

Last Friday, lawmakers lifted parliamentary immunity from prosecution for two opposition MPs caught up in the allegations while serving in Sall’s administration.

Proceedings of this type are rare in Senegal, and lawmakers must authorize cases against former ministers in the exercise of their duties.

Moustapha Diop was the industrial development minister while Salimata Diop was the women’s affairs minister under Sall when the fund to fight the spread of Covid-19 was established in 2020-21.

Both have rejected accusations that they misappropriated any of the money, totaling one trillion CFA francs ($1.7 billion).

The funds were intended to reinforce the health care system, support households and the private sector, and protect jobs during the pandemic.

However, a December 2022 Court of Auditors report revealed irregularities, such as 2.7 billion CFA francs in over-invoicing of rice purchased for disadvantaged households and some 42 million CFA francs for sanitiser.

Three other former ministers accused are Amadou Mansour Faye, the former president’s brother-in-law, Aissatou Sophie Gladima, and Ismaila Madior Fall.

Several prominent figures, including artists, broadcasters, fashion designers, and senior officials, have been questioned during an investigation.

Parliament lifted immunity for Moustapha Diop and Salimata Diop last Friday as they were elected lawmakers in November after Sall left office.

A three-fifths majority of the 165 lawmakers is required to adopt each draft resolution, with voting by secret ballot.

The High Court’s investigative committee could then question the accused, who will decide whether or not to commit them for trial.

The court’s final decision is not subject to appeal.


Albania votes in election test for EU accession

Updated 08 May 2025
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Albania votes in election test for EU accession

  • Vote — a first of its kind, as Albanians abroad can take part — pits outgoing Prime Minister Edi Rama against his arch-rival Sali Berisha
  • Doors to Brussels, he says, are the key to ‘being able to give Albanians a European passport’ and allowing them to ‘benefit from the same rights as citizens of all other European countries’

TIRANA: Albanians go to the polls on Sunday for legislative elections seen as crucial to gauge the country’s democratic development and determine its widely held goal of a European future.
The vote — a first of its kind, as Albanians abroad can take part — pits outgoing Prime Minister Edi Rama against his arch-rival Sali Berisha, a right-winger who heads an alliance of opposition parties.
Rama, 60, has been Socialist Party leader since 2005 and is seeking an unprecedented fourth consecutive term on a promise of European Union membership by 2030.
The doors to Brussels, he says, are the key to “being able to give Albanians a European passport” and allowing them to “benefit from the same rights as citizens of all other European countries.”

Trying to stop Rama is Berisha, 80, who is eager to return to power after 12 years in opposition.
The former president heads an opposition coalition that has adopted a Donald Trump-like slogan, “Great Albania,” based on economic revival.
“We are the only ones who can relaunch the country’s economy, the only ones able to take Albania forward. Edi Rama is counting the last days of his regime,” said Berisha.
The campaign also gives him a chance to reburnish his image as a strong leader, despite being under the spotlight of Albanian justice, where he is suspected of being implicated in a corruption case that allegedly benefited his family.

Shortly before the end of a campaign marked by verbal excesses, particularly on social media, the latest polls indicated a win for Rama’s party.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe meanwhile said there was “extreme political polarization” in the Balkan nation of 2.8 million.
Berisha accuses the socialists of “vote-buying, voter intimidation, pressure, use of public funds by ministers and majority candidates for their election campaign.”
Rama has dismissed the claims as “nothing but an excuse for defeat.”

For the first time in the history of elections in Albania, the diaspora is able to vote from abroad by post, in a test for the development of democratic processes and institutions, especially in the context of EU accession negotiations, which began in 2022.
According to official data from the central electoral commission, 245,935 Albanians not resident in Albania are registered to vote.
“Albania has made significant process on the path to EU accession, demonstrating its perseverance in implementing ambitious reforms for the benefit of its citizens,” Silvio Gonzato, the EU delegation’s ambassador in Albania, told AFP.

The losers have challenged the results of every election since the end of communism at the start of the 1990s on the grounds of fraud.
But this time round the vote is being closely watched and in another first, civil servants and justice officials will be deployed alongside the electoral commission and some 300 international observers.
The special prosecutor against corruption and organized crime has meanwhile just opened a verification procedure over a $6-million contract signed in April between an Albanian-American community foundation in the United States and the US lobbying firm Continental Strategy.
Continental Strategy was founded by Carlos Trujillo, a top adviser to Trump.
“The contract aims to strengthen relations between the United States and the Democratic Party, the main opposition force,” according to the party.

For Brussels, Sunday’s vote is a major new test for Albania, which has been a member of NATO since 2009.
“The organization of free and fair elections, in line with democratic norms and democratic values, will be an essential step to reinforce Albanian democracy, boost citizens’ trust in their elected representatives and advance the country’s European integration,” said Gonzato.
Just five days after the elections, Tirana will be the venue for the next European Political Community summit.


Portugal police arrest crime ring over fraudulent permits for 10,000 foreigners

Updated 08 May 2025
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Portugal police arrest crime ring over fraudulent permits for 10,000 foreigners

  • The foreigners paid to obtain bogus labor contracts that allowed them to stay in the
  • Portugal’s center-right government has toughened some immigration rules in the past year

LISBON: Portuguese police have arrested 13 people they believe provided an estimated more than 10,000 foreigners with residence permits and documents allowing them to stay in Portugal and the European Union in exchange for bribes, police said on Thursday.
A spokesperson for the Judicial Police force said the bribes paid to the group, which included a foreign ministry employee, a lawyer and several entrepreneurs, averaged 15,000 euros ($16,950) per person.
The foreigners paid to obtain bogus labor contracts that allowed them to stay in the country and then get residence permits, open bank accounts and access the social security system. Many of them have since left for other EU member states, police said.
Portugal’s center-right government has toughened some immigration rules in the past year, reflecting attempts elsewhere in Europe to fend off the rise of the far-right, and on Saturday vowed to deport 18,000 illegal migrants in the coming months.
It was not immediately clear if those who benefited from the illegal scheme counted among those.
Still, the country remains relatively open to migrants, particularly from Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and from Brazil. Many experts argue that growing immigration has stoked economic growth.
While anti-immigration sentiment is expected to play a role in an early election on May 18, far-right party Chega has been steady or declining in opinion polls after a surge in the previous election last year. The center-right Democratic Alliance of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro looks set to win the most votes.