Por: janeiwells, Enviado: Apr 24 09

Regions: Armenia, Turkey, United States

Issues: Crimes against humanity, Genocide

Tags: armenian genocide, Barack Obama, president obama

Guest blogger Jane Wells is Executive Director of 3 Generations, an organisation dedicated to recording and sharing the testimonies of genocide survivors, primarily through video interviews.

April 24th is the 94th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.  On this day we honor those who perished in what was the first genocide of the 20th century.  The numbers are so huge and the events now so long ago that it's increasingly hard to put a face to such suffering - which makes hearing the testimony of 96-year-old survivor Alice Shnorhokian all the more powerful and important.  Although Alice was only three years old when the genocide took place, she still speaks to us on behalf of over a million people lost.

The Armenian National Committee of America has recently launched a campaign for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide - The Fierce Urgency of Now - named for a phrase taken from Dr King, and a phrase taken up by President Obama during his election campaign.  Genocide still rages in Darfur, and in many other parts of the world crimes against humanity are taking place.  For that and many other reasons, the Armenian story has a special impact.

Turkey and some of her allies, including the United States, have still not recognized the atrocities against the Armenian population of Turkey in 1915 as genocide.  If we take the time to look at the documentary evidence and read the history there is no doubt that there was a systematic, racially- and politically-motivated campaign to eliminate a minority population in Turkey.  Yet even nine decades later this is still a potent and controversial political issue - one that the US has studiously avoided in light of our strategic relationship with Turkey.

In January 2008 then-Senator Obama spoke openly of the Armenian genocide and he made an election promise to formally recognize this as genocide.

Yet when he spoke to the Turkish parliament as President earlier this month, he danced around the issue:

“I know there's strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of 1915.  And while there's been a good deal of commentary about my views, it's really about how the Turkish and Armenian people deal with the past.”

The Armenian National Committee feels, not surprisingly, that President Obama missed an opportunity there.  There may be reason to think that he has a discreet plan to change the years of deadlock and denial.  Let’s hope so, for it is vital to the security and future of all of us that genocide is called when it occurs and denial is not allowed to re-write history.  If, with so few survivors remaining, this can happen with the Armenian genocide, it might then only be a matter of time until Holocaust denial is allowed to flourish, let alone denial of the more recent Cambodian, Bosnian and Rwandan genocides.  We must honor the dead, and fight for a future free of genocide and crimes against humanity.  The fierce urgency of now means starting today.