That which had to occur came to pass. Despite the Armenian-American lobby groups and, in general, the exceptional work undertaken by Armenian-Americans, the US House of Representatives did not bring up the resolution on recognising the Armenian Genocide. Of course, the resolution was not rejected, but it was not adopted either. I believe it wrong to expect the near-impossible from the Armenian-American community. In the current political situation, the efforts and calls of the Armenian-Americans cannot have a greater effect than the interests of the United States in the Middle East. America is not a country today which would sacrifice its tangible interests for the sake of sublime ideas. The Armenian-Americans have the right to be upset at the promises reneged upon by their Congressmen. And the authorities in Armenia have no right to speak whatsoever, I believe, as they denied the violated rights of their own country for those very interests one year ago; they were ready then, as they are now – since the protocols are still in flux – to hand over to the Turks vast swathes of territory legally belonging to the Republic of Armenia. I believe that that was the reason that they did not have the nerve, as their Turkish counterparts did, to appeal to the American leadership verbally or in writing. Unfortunately the same applies to the National Assembly, which was busy at the time with auctioning off our mother tongue. Silence is generally not a policy option. Each public figure must clarify his position on the most important issues pertinent to his office. We, the tax-payers and voting public of this country, must know where each relevant body and political party stands on the most important issues so as to draw our own conclusions. Is there not “a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together” (Ecclesiastes 3:5)? The time to cast stones will surely come. In any case, the focus of my article is not the discussions which took place yesterday. What happened yesterday was essentially a political occurrence, nothing more. It is more important to tackle certain rudimentary questions: what need do we have for the executive and legislative branches of the US to recognise the Armenian Genocide? If that is an end in itself, then it has no meaning. If that is being done in order to acquire reparations, then a second, no less important question needs to be answered: how is a resolution in a parliament, that too, a non-binding one, merely the expression of the position of a national legislature, to be rendered into reparations? Were the policies of Canada with regards to Turkey changed when both their legislative and executive bodies recognised the Armenian Genocide? Naturally not. So, if we desire just reparations – something which I believe to be an absolutely legitimate and feasible aim – then that has to take place through a body whose rulings: a) are international in nature, that is, which the Republic of Turkey is subject to accept as well, b) are binding, that is, which are not subject to domestic discussion within Turkey. That is to say, such rulings must not only be binding, but they must also point out, even if completely in theory, a clear way to fulfill them. There are two bodies which have such a status and such authority in international affairs today, being the supreme political and juridical bodies of the same organisation, the United Nations, namely the Security Council and the International Court of Justice. The actual responsibility of the first is the “maintenance of international peace and security” (UN Charter, Article 24). I do not believe that anyone thinks that the ninety-year violation of the rights and territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia by Turkey is considered today by any member of the Security Council as a serious threat to “international peace and security”. The issues of concern to us clearly find their place in the second aforementioned body, within the authority of the International Court of Justice. It falls under the jurisdiction of this court to take up the issue of the Armenian Genocide, because the genocide is not just some historical event, as our Turkish colleagues try to present it. Genocide is an international crime, and as a question of international law and the violation of international law, it is subject to the International Court of Justice (Statute of the International Court of Justice; articles 36.2 (b, c, d)). The shift of the issues of concern to us from the political field to the legal would generally be in our favour, if only for the reason that we would not be forced to face up to the Turkish state, which is incomparably a greater political force than us, but that we would be on an equal footing. I must underscore that this shift ought not take place in a hurry, but gradually, and in a consistent manner. We must be ready for it, but, unfortunately, we are not. A Chinaman is asked when it would be a good time to plant a tree. He answers – twenty years ago. We gained our independence almost twenty years ago. If we started to build our expertise then, we would have had a whole generation’s worth by now. History testifies to the fact that the probability for success in the legal field is greater. If one were to study the progress of the issue of the Armenian Genocide, which is but one aspect of the Armenian Question, its success in the legal field would become immediately clear. There has never been a legal body or a legal decision on the Armenian Genocide which doubted the status of the Armenian Genocide as a genocide. That has been the case starting with the Turkish military tribunals (even though the term “genocide” did not exist then, the tribunal includes its description in its rulings), and ending with the legal analysis and conclusion by Geoffrey Robertson, counsel for Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. American legal opinions have likewise never doubted that the Armenian Genocide qualifies as a genocide. Lawrence J. LeBlanc, who was highly instrumental in the establishment and development of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), and the role of the United States in guaranteeing its legal obligation, while bearing reservations with regards to many instances of massacres, considered the “wholesale slaughter of Jews and Armenians” to be outright “prominent cases of genocide”. As far as I understand, we wish the US Congress to pass the resolution on the Armenian Genocide so that Turkey would follow in its example. I am not convinced of that correlation. Racial discrimination has long since disappeared in America, but national and religious minorities in Turkey are perceived until today as base entities. If you do not believe me, ask the Kurds and Zazas. For me, personally, I do not care whether or not Turkey recognise the Armenian Genocide; I wish for that country to make reparations. Those are two different things. Turkey may recognise something, but not make reparations for it. And it can avoid recognising anything, but still make the reparations. Ultimately, we have moral, material, and territorial rights not because a genocide was carried out, but because there are international documents codifying our rights. The documents, the instruments are available. How effectively we use them depends on us alone. In the same game of chess, one player may win and another may lose, although the rules of the game apply in exactly the same manner to both. Now let us return to yesterday’s discussion on the Armenian Genocide resolution. I wish to clarify my position yet again. I am not against the US Congress, including both houses, as well as the president, recognising the Armenian Genocide. But everything has a price in this world. If this process – being more on the emotional side and also more prominent – is taking away the entire potential of our struggle, and is consequently hindering the other paths of our struggle, I begin to doubt the efficiency of that path. It seems to me at times that the Turks oppose the passage of the Armenian Genocide resolution not because they perceive a real threat in it, but because they want to keep us occupied, so that we do not go on the paths that are more dangerous for them. Let us also recall that the United States has already recognised the Armenian Genocide. In fact, the United States was the very first state which recognised the Armenian Genocide. The US did so fourteen years before Uruguay or Argentina did, in 1951, just three years after signing the Genocide Convention. The US government, in a declaration to the International Court of Justice of the UN in January, 1951, asserted the following, word-for-word: “The Roman persecutions of the Christians, the Turkish massacres of Armenians, the extermination of millions of Jews and Poles by the Nazis are outstanding examples of the crime of Genocide. This was the background when the General Assembly of the United Nations considered the problem of genocide”. It is clear from the above that the Turkish massacres of Armenians was considered by the US government without question as an outstanding example of the crime of Genocide. What is more, this declaration unassailably proves that the UN Security Council, in adopting the Genocide Convention (on the 9th of December, 1948), had the Armenian Genocide in mind. The Genocide Convention was ratified by the United States on the 25th of November, 1988. Accordingly, the document was rendered a “supreme Law of the Land”, as per the second clause of Article 6 of the US Constitution. Thirty years after the aforementioned written declaration by the US government, President Ronald Reagan once again reaffirmed the position of his country with regards to the Armenian Genocide, in 1981: “Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it – and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples – the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten”. It is clear that the current legislative and executive branches of the United States are not ready to once again assert that “the Turkish massacres of Armenians” was a genocide. I do not see any need for it myself. For me, the aim is not to get the Armenian Genocide recognised, but to eliminate the consequences of the genocide. That is to say – the restoration of the moral, material, and territorial rights of the Armenians. It is pertinent to recall the words of Armenian poet Paruyr Sevak here: I promise not to ram my bare head onto hard walls in futility. For what? The wall will stay a wall, only a good head will be lost. If the wall is a hindrance on our path, then we must seek out ways to circumvent it. It is not right to expend all of our human and material potential on short-sighted efforts. What is important is to achieve our goals. And in what ways we will end up doing so is not an essential matter. Ara Papian, Head of the Modus Vivendi Centre

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