Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kifeas]

It is a sorry state of affairs when the best argument that US politicians can come up with for HoReps refusing to label the the Armenian killings as genocide is that it might sour US-Turkish relations. Like saying, let's not call the holocaust a genocide because it might sour US-German relations. Hardly an example of occupying the moral high ground or arguing from principle !

I think what is a sorry state is the fact that lawmakers and politicians are in the absurd situation of legislating what did and did not occur in history. What judicial authority does the US house of representatives have in order to indict an entire country for a crime? After what careful examination of evidence has it reached that conclusion? I thought it was a legislative body after all.

The passage of this genocide resolution constitutes a condemnation for a crime without trial and prosecution. It contravenes the principle of due process enshrined in the fifth amendment of the United States Constitution. Turkey has never been indicted with regard to the question of 1915, even though there is nothing that stops Armenians from applying to the ICJ for crimes committed against them or their ancestors.

The ex post facto inculpation of Turkey by such a resolution is even more absurd given the fact that the word and the concept of 'genocide' did not even exist back in 1915.

First of all, it is not an issue of legalizing anything! It is only an issue of recognizing (acknowledging) that this thing happened in the past! This is the resolution all about!

Why doesn't Turkey ask the UN (perhaps under the UNESCO umbrella) to appoint an international historian's research committee that will examine the historical facts and evidence and reach to a conclusion as to what exactly happened and how it can be characterized; on the condition that Turkey will accept and acknowledge the final conclusion of the committee?

[CopperLine]

Boomerang

1.Can you also please tell me at what date ethnic cleansing was accepted as being not the norm?

As far as I am aware the term 'ethnic cleansing' entered currency in the 1990s, effectively during and in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars. The Oxford English Dictionary, which aims to record the earliest known use of words and phrases, offers a Washington Post article of 1991 on the Serbian-Croatian conflict as the first example in English of the use of the term 'ethnic cleansing.'

As a legal term I don't think that the term has been specifically defined, and in one sense that is understandable because the 1951 Genocide Convention covers all those acts which are now taken to mean ethnic cleansing. In fact one could use genocide as a near or exact synonym for ethnic cleansing.

and
2...do you know of anycases since the dates that you will quote ethnic cleansing was rejected and reversed?

I don't really know what you mean by 'rejected and reversed'. If 'rejected' means legally condemned then the examples are legion. Turn to almost every conflict of the 1990s around the world and invariably the charge of ethnic cleansing was raised and many of those claims were upheld in a variety of courts. If by 'reversed' you mean that the status quo ante i.e, return to the circumstances/position before the 'ethnic cleansing' then I can't think of any examples from the 1990s. There were efforts in the aftermath of the first and second world wars to restore peoples to the lands and properties from which they had previously been expelled though with very partial success. (Bringing this question back to the Cyprus problem, I'm very doubtful of the viability of restoring not just the property rights of pre-1974, but also of restoring the 1960 constitution. Of course people have a perfect right to wish to restore and attempt to restore the status quo ante bellum but the comparative historical record does not auger well for that strategy).

[dinos]

News reports are coming in that the fate of the bill (whether or not it comes up for a vote) is now uncertain, per Pelosi. "Uncertain" means that it's not going to happen. This leads me to believe that it was used to coerce something out of the Turks that isn't being made public.

I can't see any other reason why the speaker of the house would fight for such a measure and get so many people's dander up, only to withdraw on a dime.

[CopperLine]

People might want to look at this article http://www.bianet.org/english/kategori/english/102318/many-states-in-the-usa-have-long-recognized-genocide published in a very good (and brave) Turkish web magazine, bianet. I wish that more posters would make a distinction between the action and views of the Turkish goverment and/or state on the one hand and the great variety of actions and views held by many different Turkish citizens. That is a distinction that we should always keep at the forefront of our minds.

Anyway, here's the article itself :

Many States in The USA Have Long Recognized “Genocide”

Although there is diplomatic tension between Turkey and the USA because of the passing of the "genocide" resolution in a committee of the House of Representatives, most US states already recognise a "genocide".

Bıa news centre

16-10-2007

Erhan Üstündag

The recent furore over the passing of a resolution by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, accepting the events of 1915 as a “genocide” with 27 votes for and 21 votes against, has made people forget that many countries, including parts of the USA, have already defined events as such.

In the USA, forty of the fifty states accept the events of 1915-1917 as a “genocide”. Although Turkey is now working towards the resolution not being passed by the complete House of Representatives, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in firm support of the resolution.

In some countries there have been symbolic decrees to remember and condemn the terrible experiences of Armenians at the time. ın other countries, the denial of a genocide may be pursued legally. For instance, Argentina has passed many decisions, such as the one to acknowledge a “genocide”, to demand that Turkey and the United Nations do so, too, and to include the events in school curricula.

18 parliamentary resolutions

Particularly since 2005, the parliaments of several countries have decided to officially recognise the events of 1915 as a “genocide”.

There are eighteen countries who have passed such decisions in parliament:

Uruguay: 1965, 2004, 2005; Southern Cyprus: 1982; Argentina: 1993, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007; Russia: 1995, 2005; Canada: 1996, 2000, 2004; Greece: 1996; the Lebanon: 1997, 2000; Belgium: 1998; Italy: 2000; the Vatikan: 2000; France: 2001; Switzerland: 2003; Slovakia: 2004; Holland: 2004; Poland: 2005; Venezuela: 2005; Lithuania: 2005; Chile: 2007.

Other recognition

Sweden, Austria and Armenia have recognised the 1915 events as a “genocide” without a parliamentary decision, and the German parliament passed a decision in 2005 to “remember the Armenians who were exposed to violence and forced emigration and killed before the First World War”. While the Germans do not use the term “genocide”, the parliament has said that “some independent historians, institutions and parliaments have described these events as genocide.”

Apart from the Federal government, Canada’s states of Quebec and Ontario also recognise a “genocide”. Australia’s state parliament of New South Wales recognised and condemned the “genocide” in 1997.

In Brazil, the states of Ceara and Sao Paolo have accepted a “genocide.

In 2007, the Basque parliament passed a similar resolution.

According to the law passed in France in 2006, a denial of the “Armenian genocide” is punished with imprisonment and fines.

A draft brought to the Bulgarian parliament in 2006 was voted against because of the reactions of Turkish MPs. (EÜ/NZ/AG)

[greek.god]

Amazing, so Turkey wants the EU and the world to reward it for the ethnic cleansing, colonization and continuing occupation of Cyprus? For violating international treaties and UN resolutions?

It blames the 67% of all Cypriot voters who voted against a racist and partitionist UN plan that would have disolved Cyprus and made part of Cyprus officially part of Turkey? Why does Turkey not implament that UN plan for the Kurdish minority in southeast Turkey?

The Turkish goverment needs to have a deep soul searching starting with the treatment of its minorities (Christians, Kurds, etc), and with its aggression against its neighbors, and the Armenian genocide. Only by truely looking at the root causes of its problems will Turkey have a chance to move forward and put those problems behind it.

One thing is certain, the problem is not the EU, the United States, the UN, or the minorities. It is the Turkish attitute and mentality towards its own minorities and neighbors.

[shahmaran]

Absolute rubbish!!

We do not have a minority problem here anymore, just a terrorist problem which is being dealt with as we speak, these animals will pay for everything they did and so will anyone who is supporting them. The Greeks should leave us aside and think about the way they are STILL treating the Thracian Turks!

It is absolutely ridiculous that Turkey is having to take the blame of the actions of some fanatic Turks from the Ottoman era without any real investigation nor trial. After WW2 it was the NAZIS that were to blame for the genocide, not the GERMANS, so why is it that the doings of the Young Turks AND Kurds with the support of the Russians and the French, is being blamed on a country which is not even as old as the genocide itself? Because everyone behind this are a bunch of crooks and so is the "RoC" and its rotten leader Papadapulos!

And let me also remind you that if this bill does pass, there will be a lot more countries who will have some explaining to do from their dark times, including the "RoC" and their doings at the TC villages!

[miltiades]

Absolute rubbish!!

We do not have a minority problem here anymore, just a terrorist problem which is being dealt with as we speak, these animals will pay for everything they did and so will anyone who is supporting them. The Greeks should leave us aside and think about the way they are STILL treating the Thracian Turks!

It is absolutely ridiculous that Turkey is having to take the blame of the actions of some fanatic Turks from the Ottoman era without any real investigation nor trial. After WW2 it was the NAZIS that were to blame for the genocide, not the GERMANS, so why is it that the doings of the Young Turks AND Kurds with the support of the Russians and the French, is being blamed on a country which is not even as old as the genocide itself? Because everyone behind this are a bunch of crooks and so is the "RoC" and its rotten leader Papadapulos!

And let me also remind you that if this bill does pass, there will be a lot more countries who will have some explaining to do from their dark times, including the "RoC" and their doings at the TC villages!

As always , the young Punk , comes to the rescue of the indefensible !!
IM PLEASED THAT YOU ARE IN THE MINORITY MATE "" These animals you say , is this how you view 15 or so millions of Kurds ?? And what of the rubbish " we dont have a minority " Who is we mate "??

[zan]

Amazing, so Turkey wants the EU and the world to reward it for the ethnic cleansing, colonization and continuing occupation of Cyprus? For violating international treaties and UN resolutions?

It blames the 67% of all Cypriot voters who voted against a racist and partitionist UN plan that would have disolved Cyprus and made part of Cyprus officially part of Turkey? Why does Turkey not implament that UN plan for the Kurdish minority in southeast Turkey?

The Turkish goverment needs to have a deep soul searching starting with the treatment of its minorities (Christians, Kurds, etc), and with its aggression against its neighbors, and the Armenian genocide. Only by truely looking at the root causes of its problems will Turkey have a chance to move forward and put those problems behind it.

One thing is certain, the problem is not the EU, the United States, the UN, or the minorities. It is the Turkish attitute and mentality towards its own minorities and neighbors.

The "RoC" did it with a similar record so why are you so surprised....Greece instigated the violence with a coup and they got in????

[shahmaran]

Absolute rubbish!!

We do not have a minority problem here anymore, just a terrorist problem which is being dealt with as we speak, these animals will pay for everything they did and so will anyone who is supporting them. The Greeks should leave us aside and think about the way they are STILL treating the Thracian Turks!

It is absolutely ridiculous that Turkey is having to take the blame of the actions of some fanatic Turks from the Ottoman era without any real investigation nor trial. After WW2 it was the NAZIS that were to blame for the genocide, not the GERMANS, so why is it that the doings of the Young Turks AND Kurds with the support of the Russians and the French, is being blamed on a country which is not even as old as the genocide itself? Because everyone behind this are a bunch of crooks and so is the "RoC" and its rotten leader Papadapulos!

And let me also remind you that if this bill does pass, there will be a lot more countries who will have some explaining to do from their dark times, including the "RoC" and their doings at the TC villages!

As always , the young Punk , comes to the rescue of the indefensible !!
IM PLEASED THAT YOU ARE IN THE MINORITY MATE "" These animals you say , is this how you view 15 or so millions of Kurds ?? And what of the rubbish " we dont have a minority " Who is we mate "??

When i said animals i was referring to the TERRORISTS who, only today, killed 12 Turks and kidnapped 8 more, not the KURDS who are the fellow citizens of TURKEY!

So i suggest you go grab them reading glasses next time old pal!

Either way, dont look at the finger to avoid the point mate!

[miltiades]

The point Shah is that you stated that you are a T/C only to contradict yourself every time you refer to Turkey by using "we " meaning we the Turkish people. Make your mind up either you are a Cypriot Turk or Turkish.Vast difference mate .Further more there is a Kurdish minority in Turkey , some 15 million and they are proud Kurds , the entire international community accepts the existence of this ethnic group in Turkey , just as they accept the existence of Kurds in Iraq and Syria. The Kurdish people are a proud race just as the Turks the Greeks and for that matter all races on this planet.To deny the existence of a race is to deny the validity of ethnicity.