EU Reaffirms Support for Turkish Recognition of Armenian Genocide

BRUSSELS, Belgium--The European Parliament voted again on February 28, 2002, for a measure urging Turkey to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, adopting a report drafted by Swedish MP Per Gahrton (Green Party) on European Union-South Caucasus relations, reported the Armenian National Committee (ANC) of Europe.

In adopting the Per Garhton Report, the European Parliament rejected an amendment offered by the European Liberal Democrat Reform Party and a handful of independent members. The amendment, which was defeated by a vote of 391 to 96 and 15 abstentions, would have removed all references in the Gahrton Report to the 1987 EP resolution on the Armenian Genocide. In its place, the amendment would have included language that urged Turkey and Armenia to reconcile their "historical differences" and work toward "improving their cultural, economic, and diplomatic ties."

Numerous stands favorable to the adoption of the original Paragraph 15 of the report mentioning the Genocide occurred during the discussion of the issue. Gahrton emphasized that "history must not to be rewritten" and that "after World War I, the guilt for the Genocide has been proven." Greek MP Christos Zacharakis (People's Party of Europe) and Italian MP Demetrio Volcic (European Socialist Party) underlined that their parties would adopt the unchanged paragraph. French MP Dominique Souchet (Independent) made a speech that attracted considerable attention, declaring that he "doesn't understand the Turkish attitude" and that "the blockade of Armenia has to be removed without any precondition."

The ELDR attempted to add their amendment to Paragraph 15, but this effort was eventually rejected by its own supporters.

"We welcome the adoption of the Gahrton Report in its initial form," said Laurent Leylekian, Executive Director of the ANC of Europe. "We believe it is a fair and equitable document that will advance EU relations with the Caucasus republics as well as with neighboring states."

"We are gratified that our representatives in the European Parliament have reiterated their principled support for Turkey's acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide. As the adoption of this report illustrates, deceptive and manipulative undertakings, such as the recently disbanded Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission, cannot be a substitute for a concrete steps on the part of Turkey to come to terms with this chapter in its history," he added.

A delegation of the ANC of Europe also met with European Parliament member Alain Lamassoure at his party headquarters in early February. The meeting was held at the initiative of French MP François Rochebloine, the former president of the France-Armenia Parliamentary Friendship Group.

Lamassoure has been the author of the annual report on "Turkey's Progress Towards Accession" within the EU. In the most recent report, Lamassoure replaced a long-standing reference to the Armenian Genocide with a passage in support of the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission. His report was approved in October 2001.

At the meeting, the ANC of Europe delegation informed him of the dissolution of TARC and briefed him on the important role Europe can play in encouraging Turkey to come to terms with the Genocide. Lamassoure assured the delegation of his intention to work towards Turkish recognition of the Genocide.

Survivors File Suit Against French Insurer

LOS ANGELES (Asbarez)--American-born descendants of victims of the Armenian Genocide filed a class-action lawsuit on March 2, 2002 in Los Angeles Federal Central District Court against AXA, one of the world's leading insurance companies. Eighty-seven years after members of their families were brutally killed in the Genocide, the Kurkdjian, Yirikian, and Topadjian families filed the lawsuit to recover the life insurance benefits that were wrongfully withheld. The suit was filed on behalf of all Armenians who owned life insurance policies from AXA and its related companies, who were massacred in the Armenian Genocide, and whose beneficiaries were never paid the insurance benefits.

At the end of the 19th century, AXA, through its subsidiaries of Equitable Life Assurance Company (US) and L'Union-Vie (French), among others, expanded its operations into the Turkish Ottoman Empire. AXA targeted ethnic Catholic Armenians in the Turkish Ottoman Empire for the sale of its insurance policies. By 1915, it is reported that AXA had sold more than 11,000 policies in Turkey. Almost all of these policyholders, the suit contends, were massacred when the government launched a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing and killed more than 1.5 million Armenians. One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Sarkis Kurkdjian, a textile manufacturer from Arabkir, purchased a policy in 1911 worth 4,000 French francs. On June 13, 1915 he was massacred. According to the lawsuit, the Kurkdjian family tried for more than 70 years to obtain the promised benefits, but AXA demanded that the survivors produce nonexistent documents, such as death and non-mobilization certificates.

The Kurkdjian family did obtain the death and the non-mobilization certificates. The death certificate was issued by two deportation companions of Sarkis Kurkdjian in 1928. They certify that "He died during the deportation and they dug his grave with their hands and buried him without the benefit of a religious service." They also gave a certificate stating that Kurkdjian was never mobilized into the Ottoman Military. In spite of numerous attempts, AXA's final response to the Kurkdjian family on October 16, 2000 was "the 30-year statute of limitation had run out in 1945."

Artin Yirikian, a merchant and manufacturer from Adana and the grandfather of Krikor Yirikian, bought life insurance from L'Union-Vie in 1910 for 3000 French francs. He died in the Genocide, and 85 years of efforts by his heirs have produced no result. Leon Arabian, a farmer from Adana and the grandfather of Anik Topajian, bought life insurance from L'Union-Vie in 1911 for 3000 French francs and paid premiums until deported in the Genocide.

AXA admitted liability according to a letter sent by the Director of Union-Vie to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs on April 11, 1922: "The amount of risk insured by Union-Vie in the Ottoman Empire reached on the 31 December 1915 (French francs) Fr. 42,335,000 ($8,000,000) and the whole of these risks was spread over 10,899 contracts...The greatest number of our contracts are on the lives of Armenians. L'Union-Vie acknowledges its liability for these massacre deaths under its policies of insurance as 'Deaths undoubtedly caused through the Turk's fault, and not through the free action of the normal laws of mortality.' It would be unworthy of a great company, contrary to equity, and strongly prejudicial to the prestige and renown of our country, to refuse the payments."

On January 1, 1916 Equitable Life Assurance Company acknowledged that they had outstanding 371 policies for $689,883 of insurance in Turkey. AXA never paid the benefits due on thousands of policies sold before the Armenian Genocide. Kurkdjian, Yirikian, and Topadjian, represented by Glendale attorneys Vartkes Yeghiayan and Rita Mahdessian, are seeking legal redress for an order requiring AXA and all of its related companies to identify the insurance benefits which belong to the Armenians, to identify the rightful heirs, and to pay the benefits to the Armenian Genocide victims.

Turkish and Armenian Scholars Meet to Discuss Armenian Genocide at University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, MI--The second in a series of meetings between Turkish and Armenian scholars was at the International Institute of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor from March 8-10, 2002. The first conference organized by Prof. Ronald Suny was held at the University of Chicago from March 17-19, 2000.

Although very few details were released to the public before the event, an unsigned article titled "Turkish and Armenian Scholars Meet on the Genocide" was distributed by conference organizers Ronald Grigor Suny and Fatma Müge Göçek after its conclusion.

"When you encounter scholars outside of a university setting, they do not look that different from people in other professions. But when they do their work, they require a degree of calm and quiet," began the release. "Such an atmosphere needed for deliberation and respectful exchange was achieved for three days at the University of Michigan."

According to the organizers, 20 historians, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, and select invited guests interested in the Ottoman Empire and the fate of its Armenian subjects came from the US, Turkey, and Germany to participate in the workshop on "Contextualizing the Armenian Experience in the Ottoman Empire: From the Balkan Wars to the New Turkish Republic."

"The aim of the workshop," read the release, "was to understand why genocide occurred, and this could only be done if the larger historical context--the tensions between Armenians and Turks, the ways in which Turks constructed Armenians as subversive and dangerous elements, and the defeats and threats of the world war--was taken into account."

University of Chicago Professor Ronald Suny opened the proceedings with "a review of the Armenian and Western historical writing on the massacres and deportations of 1915," and University of Michigan Professor Gocek followed this with "a parallel paper on the Turkish historiography."

Prof. Suny proposed that standard accounts left little room for understanding the complexity of the events, and that existing histories attempt to explain the massacres by reference to religion or nationalism without fully considering that the Young Turks were secular modernizers dedicated to preserving an empire. "Up to now Armenian historiography blamed the Turks, gave little active role to Armenians, and linked all of Ottoman history into a story that led inevitably to genocide," argued Prof. Suny. "The official Turkish state view denied the Genocide and claimed that 'there was no genocide, and the Armenians are to blame.'"

Göçek, who is a professor of sociology and women's studies, reviewed the shift from late Ottoman writing on 1915--which recognized that massive killings had taken place--to the historiography of the Turkish republic in which deliberate misuse of the historical record became the norm. In recent years, a few Turkish scholars have moved to a "post-nationalist" narrative, despite official political pressure, and are attempting to write a more objective account. Prof. Gocek noted that scholars such as Halil Berktay, Taner Akçam, and Taner Timur have based new accounts of the massacres and deportations on careful reading of Ottoman documents.

"Dr. Vahakn Dadrian disputed Suny's rendering of the causes of the massacres, for downplaying the significance of Islam," according to the news release. "Dadrian claimed that Islam is a dogma that does not change and that the majority of massacres occurred after Muslim services ended, when clerics called for Jihad against Armenians."

University of California Professor Stephan Astourian discussed the thousands of Armenians who were saved by Muslims.

UCLA Professor Richard Hovannisian explained that Armenian scholarship, like writing on the Holocaust, was divided between "intentionalists," who see a longtime Turkish intention to commit genocide, and "functionalists" who saw the events as much more contingent and the result of perceived threats during the war. Dr. Hovannisian argued that this dichotomy was greatly exaggerated and that the functionalist and intentionalist views could coexist.

University of Michigan Professor Taner Akçam argued that the Young Turks had decided to deport non-Muslim peoples from Anatolia as early as January 1914, and that several scholars "emphasized the importance of the Ottoman defeats in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 for their heightened panic about losing Anatolia."

Other presenters included Fikret Adanir from Bochum University, Soner Çaaptay from Yale Univeristy, and Aron Rodrigue from Stanford University. A young scholar from Southampton, England, Donald Bloxham, presented a controversial paper on "cumulative radicalization" during the Armenian Genocide. "He argued that war was a key ingredient that led to mass killing of civilians. The Turkish policy became progressively more radical as the government saw the Armenians as a dangerous 'fifth column' within their country. It was not until June 1915, he claimed, that the policy became genocidal, that is, deportations turned into systematic mass murder," according to the press release.

Paul Boghossian from New York University explained that causation and justification are two distinct things, and that because we can point out causes for something does not mean we justify that same thing. The Turkish response to the situation in 1915, he stated, was out of proportion, and nothing justifies genocide.

University of Michigan Professor Jirair Libaridian "summed up some of the discussion," according to the organizers. Prof. Libaridian pointed out that "we don't know everything, and we haven't decided everything," and that "this is a healthy attitude."

After the discussions, the workshop adjourned to a "public session" at which Göçek, Suny, Michael Kennedy, Director of the International Institute and Vice Provost of International Affairs, and two journalists from Turkey, Cengiz Çandar and Hrant Dink, gave their impressions of the workshop.

According to the article distributed by the organizers, some in the audience were unhappy with the workshop and felt that it had been one-sided and closed to alternative views. After listening to the increasingly heated discussion between the public and the participants, Baskin Oran, a political scientist from Ankara University, pointed out that such discussion illustrates why scholars have to "meet by themselves" to carry on their work.