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[Adventurer]

Why Armenia pays high price for 'genocide' campaign
A diaspora-led push to recognize as 'genocide' the 1915-17 mass killing, which is commemorated on April 24, has soured relations with Turkey.
By Nicole Itano | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
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Yerevan, ARMENIA - Gevork Melikyan, aged 94, stares off into the distance with cloudy eyes. His daughter-in-law says he has trouble remembering what happened last week, but he remembers with startling clarity the day when his family fled Turkey � right down to the name of the dog they left behind.

He was called "Challo," the old man recalls, dentures clacking. "I remember my mother telling me, 'Lock the door and throw the key over the gate.' " When they fled, they left the dog behind to guard the house.

Mr. Melikyan is one of the last remaining survivors of the mass killing and expulsion of ethnic Armenians from Turkey that took place between 1915 and 1917, which is widely recognized as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey disputes that characterization, however, saying there was no organized campaign to kill Armenians and that the deportations took place in the context of war. As the last witnesses reach the twilight of their lives, the question of how to judge what happened in those years remains center stage in the region's complex politics.

The international campaign for universal recognition of the massacres as a genocide has been generally led by the Armenian diaspora, many of whom are descendants of families scattered from 1915-17. While the Armenian government and most Armenians support the campaign, there is also a growing recognition within the country that Armenia pays a heavy price for continued tensions with Turkey.

A resolution to recognize the events of 1915-17 as genocide was introduced in the US House of Representatives early this year, with supporters pushing for its passage around April 24, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

The Bush administration � like previous administrations � opposes the resolution, saying it will compromise national security by harming relations with Muslim ally Turkey, which has lobbied hard against it. But new House speaker Nancy Pelosi's longtime support of such a resolution, together with the broadest House support such a resolution has seen in 20 years, has led to expectations that the resolution has the first realistic chance of passing in many years.

Mr. Demoyan, whose family left the city of Kars in eastern Turkey, is charged with protecting and researching the event's history.

But he is also anxious that the museum not demonize Turks and is considering an exhibit about Turkish people who saved Armenians. He believes coming to terms with the past will help Turkey embrace a new future and prevent future genocides from occurring. "Turkey is at a crossroads," he says. "One road leads to democratization. The other is destructive and leads to nationalism."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0423/p07s02-woeu.html?page=2

[igotthisguitar]

Ah yes, Ottoman history & the disinegration of the formerly glorious Empire.

Say, weren't the Rothschilds behind that genocide as well?

Word has it they were

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=armenian+genocide+rothschilds

THE JEWISH GENOCIDE OF ARMENIAN CHRISTIANS
http://www.jewishracism.com/JewishGenocide.htm

http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/armeniangenocide.html

[Rteacher]

There are, of course, good and bad Turks, good and bad Armenians, good and bad Jews, and good and bad Muslims, Christians, etc...

Despite extensive propaganda campaigns and political maneuvering by Turkish leaders to deny their genocidal history, they have gradually lost the public opinion battle in most western countries.

America has officially maintained a double-standard with regard to the Armenian genocide and the Jewish holocaust, reflecting the Armenian lobby's comparitive lack of influence on American politics and mass media...

Bush and American government officials are lobbying hard against the resolution that would acknowledge the Armenian genocide because of Turkish threats to shut down the U.S. military base and restrict overflight rights ...
http://www.armeniadiaspora.com/ADC/news.asp?id=2128

I think this is a fairly accurate summary of what historically transpired:

World War One gave the Young Turk government the cover and the excuse to carry out their plan. The plan was simple and its goal was clear. On April 24th 1915, commemorated worldwide by Armenians as Genocide Memorial Day, hundreds of Armenian leaders were murdered in Istanbul after being summoned and gathered. The now leaderless Armenian people were to follow. Across the Ottoman Empire (with the exception of Constantinople, presumably due to a large foreign presence), the same events transpired from village to village, from province to province.

The remarkable thing about the following events is the virtually complete cooperation of the Armenians. For a number of reasons they did not know what was planned for them and went along with "their" government's plan to "relocate them for their own good." First, the Armenians were asked to turn in hunting weapons for the war effort. Communities were often given quotas and would have to buy additional weapons from Turks to meet their quota. Later, the government would claim these weapons were proof that Armenians were about to rebel. The able bodied men were then "drafted" to help in the wartime effort. These men were either immediately killed or were worked to death. Now the villages and towns, with only women, children, and elderly left were systematically emptied. The remaining residents would be told to gather for a temporary relocation and to only bring what they could carry. The Armenians again obediently followed instructions and were "escorted" by Turkish Gendarmes in death marches.

The death marches led across Anatolia, and the purpose was clear. The Armenians were raped, starved, dehydrated, murdered, and kidnapped along the way. The Turkish Gendarmes either led these atrocities or turned a blind eye. Their eventual destination for resettlement was just as telling in revealing the Turkish governments goal: the Syrian Desert, Der Zor. Those who miraculously survived the march would arrive to this bleak desert only to be killed upon arrival or to somehow survive until a way to escape the empire was found. Usually those that survived and escaped received assistance from those who have come to be known as "good Turks," from foreign missionaries who recorded much of these events and from Arabs...
http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Armenian_Genocide

Currently it's a crime in Turkey for anyone to use the term "genocide" to indicate what happened to over a million Armenians. When the Frence National Assembly voted not long ago to criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide, the Turkish military cut all contacts with the French military and terminated defense contracts under negotiation . Bush/Cheney Rice, Gates and the Jewish lobby will do all they can to prevent anything unacceptable to Turkey from coming to a vote in the U.S.