02/02/2010
Report by the Hrant Dink Society (Supported by Nor Serount Cultural Association – UK and Armenia Solidarity), c/o The Temple of Peace, Cardiff
"Hrant Dink Day in the UK Parliament on 19th January 2010".
Hrant Dink Day was marked in London with a solemn gathering outside the Turkish Embassy at 1p.m. and a three hour sequence of well attended meetings in The House of Commons and the House of Lords, where "Friends of Belge" (patrons: Professor Noam Chomsky and Rosie Malek-Yonan) was launched. Sponsors of the events were Nia Griffith MP, Dr. Bob Spink MP and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff. Speakers included the Istanbul publisher Ragip Zarakolu, the genocide scholar Desmond Fernandes, Eilian Williams, Ruth Barnett from the Holocaust Educational Trust, Professor Khatchatur I. Pilikian, the historian Vardan Tadevossian, Kasim Agpak from FEDBIR - the Kurdish Federation, Haci Ozdemir from the International Committee Against Disappearances (British Section) and Saad Tokatly from Iraqi Christians in the UK.
Ragip Zarokulu spoke about Hrant: "We had dreams together for a different Turkey, we had dreams together for a different world". He went on to describe the philosophy underpinning the Turkish ‘deep state’, in which the ‘minorities’ are viewed as interior enemies and a permanent threat to national security. This idea is described in the National Security Document, referred to as the "Red Book", which goes on to state that it is the army’s responsibility to fight against this "threat". This concept of the minorities being interior enemies has deep roots in Turkey going back to 1915. Ragip emphasised the manner in which "the Turkish State has a double structure, the open structure of the state apparatus and the ‘deep structure’ which is hidden. The ‘deep’ part in 1915 comprised the special committees who organised the mass killings during the Genocide. Hrant was open about the reality of the Genocide, and encouraged Armenians in Turkey, for the first time since the founding of the Republic, to speak openly about their Armenian identity. He wanted to show Armenian identity to Turkish society as a base for peaceful co-existence. [But] even though the Turkish State well knew that Hrant’s life became endangered from the time that" he was placed "on a ‘black-list’, they made no effort to prevent his murder. By killing Hrant, they were killing themselves. Nothing can be the same again after Hrant’s murder. Turkey has to change or face ending in a much worse situation".
Ruth Barnett from the Holocaust Educational Trust presented a moving account of "The shared Jewish and Armenian experience". Desmond Fernandes observed the manner in which "it is clear that there is a crisis in Turkey as far as human rights are concerned – human rights, here, in an individual and collective sense as far as ‘Others’ – ‘Armenians’, ‘Kurds’, ‘Assyrians’, ‘Greeks’, ‘Roma’, ‘Turkish or Kurdish Alevi’ or ‘Christian Others’, ‘human rights campaigners’, ‘people from the targeted left’, ‘trade unionist and student Others asking for collective bargaining rights’, ‘publishers and journalists working on topics relating to the deep state and/or the plight and acknowledged identity of the Other in Turkey’ - are concerned. One can, unfortunately, observe that the spectre - and the reality - of genocide remains, as defined by Raphael Lemkin, the UN Genocide Convention and by several distinguished genocide scholars". He also detailed specific genocidal concerns that had been raised by Abdullah Ocalan, Theoharis Kekis and KCK Executive Council members Bozan Tekin and Cemil Bayik, and the frightening dimensions of lynch campaigns against targeted ‘Others’ as well as the ‘Cage Operation Action Plan’ which "was supposedly worked out as a coup plan by the Naval Forces, targeting non-Muslims" (Onderoglu). Disturbingly, he noted that several state initiatives seem to have been designed to politically derail any lasting or meaningful peace processes with the KCK(Koma Civaken Kurdistan)-PKK (which had initiated a cease-fire and peace process), or with the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the mass based pro-Kurdish party which was constitutionally closed down in December 2009, with criminal proceedings initiated against its sitting members of parliament. People even from the newly formed but mass based pro-Kurdish BDP (Peace and Democracy Party), as well as sitting and former Kurdish mayors and human rights campaigners were being targeted in a scandalous manner.
Kasim Agpak spoke powerfully about the nature of state terror in Turkey and the murder and significance of Hrant Dink’s assassination. Vardan Tadevossian’s presentation emphasised the nature of the ongoing genocide of Armenians and the extent of destruction of Armenia’s heritage. Saad Tokatly examined the "Consequences of the Genocide for Assyrians in Turkey and Iraq" and "The current problems of Assyrians and other Middle East Christians". Eilian Williams also pointed out that Christians, as ‘Others’, are suffering in Iraq, with “the 2003 war instigated by the US and the UK ensur[ing] that the country is more dangerous than ever" for many Christians. But "Britain now seems happy to wash her hands of her wrongdoings and to allow the Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriacs to reap the bloody consequences … The door is firmly closed to Christian refugees” even as Iraqi refugee ‘Others’ are - scandalously and shamefully - being forcibly removed and deported from the UK.
With the launch of ‘Friends of Belge’, Ragip Zarakolu explained the context in which publishers like Belge - together with writers and journalists - were still being subject to criminalisation, targeting and intimidation. In answering questions from the floor, it became all too evident that Article 301 was - and is - still being used to curb freedom of expression, despite denials by certain Turkish officials in this matter. Haci Ozdemir from the International Committee Against Disappearances (British Section) detailed the extensive manner in which ongoing Turkish state terror and criminalisation of writers, journalists and publishers is evident. He also explained the relevance of holding the International Committee Against Disappearances’ international conference in London in May this year.
Professor Khatchatur I. Pilikian’s moving presentation ("“Problems with the terms from Holocaust to Genocide”) and conclusion provided much food for thought: "Poor old Raphael Lemkin! Latter-day sophists are trying to ‘by-pass’ him, particularly now that concepts such as Democracy, Socialism, Freedom, Human Rights, and what not, are made to lose their essential meanings, nay even are made to ‘act’ as their antinomies in real life through their post-modernist, neo-con and neo-liberal abuse. Yes, even language is experiencing a collateral damage indeed. To top it all, the recent and most popular President of the USA since J.F. Kennedy, Barak Obama, chose to use the Armenian term Medz Yeghern=Big Crime in his April 24, 2009 commemorative speech in remembrance of the Genocide of the Armenians, without ever mentioning the word Genocide, let alone its modern and precise Armenian equivalence: Tseghsbanoutyoun.
"When addressing the American Armenian voters during his presidential campaigns, the word the distinguished Senator Barak Obama always used, was Genocide. Naturally, he got most of the American Armenian votes. [But] as President of USA, Barak Obama chose to ‘balkanise’ Lemkin’s coinage of the word, singling out one of its national culture dictated pre-Lemkinian usage, as if unwittingly emulating Prof Haim Bresheeth’s advice, … thus avoiding the word Genocide. The question remains: Why President Obama’s archaic choice?
"Although the answer is not hard to decipher from the history of the last century, our turbulent times too will soon teach us new lessons, granted we are willing to learn and act upon it. As the Preamble of the Verdict of the prestigious Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal of April 16th 1984 concludes: ‘Indeed, acknowledging genocide itself is a fundamental means of struggling against genocide. The acknowledgement is itself an affirmation of the right of a people under international law to a safeguarded existence’. Let’s pray to God to let this grace of acknowledgement befall our brethren and sisters of denial, including those among our own UK Parliamentarians".
For further details of the meetings and presentations, contact Eilian Williams at: eilian@talktalk.net or tel: 0771 8982732.
