29 Sept 06 - The Aegis Trust is appalled at the European Parliament’s rejection this week (27 September) of a provision that called upon Turkey to recognize the 1915 Armenian Genocide as a precondition for EU accession.
An estimated 1.5 million Armenians – who as a Christian minority, lived for years as second-class citizens in the Ottoman Empire – were killed in a genocide orchestrated by Turkey in 1915-1916. Ankara rejects all accusations of genocide, arguing that not more than 300,000 Armenians perished as a consequence of war, famine, harsh climate and ethnic conflict.
This is in sharp contrast to the honesty of the perpetrators at the time. In June 1915, Talaat Pasha, Turkish Minister of the Interior, stated to Dr Mordtmann of the German Embassy: “Turkey is taking advantage of [World War One] in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, ie, the indigenous Christians, without thereby being disturbed by foreign intervention.”
The European Union should be based on fundamental human rights. A member state destroying 1.5 million of its citizens is hardly compatible with the principles of the EU. It may be 90 years ago, but we cannot pretend that those lives did not or do not matter.
If Germany denied the Holocaust and the other member states of the EU did not care, we would be living in a very uncertain continent for vulnerable minorities. It is illogical to apply a different standard to Turkey. It signals that if you hold out long enough with denial, you can get away with wiping out populations.
It is no wonder that the EU member states have not done enough to protect people in Darfur, despite all the hand-wringing. European leaders do not care enough about preventing genocide.
In 1918, reflecting on Turkey’s destruction of the Armenians, Theodore Roosevelt put it succinctly; “the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it... [it] means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense.”
Following the European Parliament’s dangerous move, Roosevelt’s warning rings truer than ever.
