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Armenian genocide: How Valley prosecutor missed his chance to be ‘immortal symbol of justice’

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Attorney James Lindsay, defendant Gourgen Yanikian,

Attorney James Lindsay, defendant Gourgen Yanikian, District Attorney David Minier, attorney Vasken Minasian in 1972. Contributed

By David Minier

Twice each year, my thoughts turn to the Armenian Genocide. On April 24, the anniversary date of the 1915 massacres orchestrated by the Turkish government. And on Jan. 27, when 45 years ago Gourgen Yanikian assassinated two Turkish diplomats in Santa Barbara to avenge the genocide.

Yanikian, age 78 and a former Fresno resident, was charged with murder, and I was his prosecutor.

The aging Armenian had lured the diplomats to a cottage at Santa Barbara’s exclusive Biltmore Hotel, promising gifts of art treasures for their government. Instead, he pulled a Luger pistol from a hollowed out book and emptied it at them. He then called the reception desk, announced he had killed “two evils,” and sat calmly on the patio awaiting arrest.

Yanikian’s purpose was to create an “Armenian Nuremberg” – a show trial to call world attention to the genocide, as the Nuremberg trial had done with Nazi war crimes. And perhaps to be acquitted. Yanikian’s hope was not unreasonable.

In 1921, a German jury had acquitted Soghoman Tehlirian of murdering Talaat Pasha, the Turkish official most responsible for the genocide. Tehlirian later settled in Fresno, and his tomb is the centerpiece of Fresno’s Masis Ararat Cemetery.

Talaat had been sentenced in absentia to death for “crimes against humanity,” and had fled to Germany. Tehlirian found Talaat and shot him to death on a Berlin street. As planned, Tehlirian pled not guilty, and his trial was reported worldwide.

‘They Simply Had to Let Him Go’

Tehlirian testified about the rape and murder of his sisters, the beheading of his mother, and the killings of his brothers. It took a jury less than two hours to find Tehlirian not guilty. The New York Times headline read, “They Simply Had To Let Him Go.”

Fifty-two years later, in a Santa Barbara courtroom, Yanikian sought his “Armenian Nuremberg,” and an acquittal. As prosecutor, it was my duty to convict him.

The trial proceeded without personal rancor. I have a photograph of Yanikian, his attorneys and me, standing together, smiling, during a court recess. And another, with the inscription “to our admired and respected District Attorney and friend.”

Yanikian’s attorneys told the judge they wanted to call as witnesses eminent historians and elderly Armenians who had survived the genocide. And survivors were available. Bused daily from Southern California, they sat silently in the courtroom among family members, ready to recount unspeakable horrors.

One of Yanikian’s attorneys, Vasken Minasian, asked me to allow the testimony. He gave me a copy of “The Cross and the Crescent,” about the Tehlirian trial. In it he wrote: “The tragedy in Santa Barbara has brought destiny and God to your doorstep,” and he urged me to “bring forth an indictment against genocide.” He added, “You stand to become an immortal symbol of justice around the world.”

This was heady stuff, and I faced a dilemma: to allow a parade of eye-witnesses to the genocide, risking an acquittal, or to block the evidence to obtain a conviction. I knew such evidence would likely lead to “jury nullification,” where a jury disregards the law and acquits for a perceived greater justice, as the Tehlirian jury had done.

I took the safer path, and the judge sustained my objection to the witnesses. But I could not in good conscience block the testimony of Yanikian himself, no matter how it inflamed the jury. He commanded the witness stand for six days and described in detail, without objection, the Armenian genocide.

Turks slaughter 27 family members

Yanikian told how, as a boy of 8, he watched marauding Turks slit his brother’s throat, and of the slaughter of 26 other family members. He testified in Armenian, translated by Aram Saroyan, former Fresno grape shipper, San Francisco attorney, and uncle of author William Saroyan.

Jurors were moved to tears by Yanikian’s testimony, but they were denied the corroborating testimony the defense hoped would sway their decision. The Yanikian jury, unlike the Tehlirian jury, followed the law and gave me what I asked: two first-degree murder verdicts. There would be no nullification. Yanikian was sentenced to life in prison. He was granted compassionate release to a care home in 1984, over objection of the Turkish government, and died of cancer two months later.

Yanikian failed to get his Armenian Nuremberg, and “The Forgotten Genocide,” denied to this day by the Turkish government, was never proved in a court of law by the testimony of eyewitness survivors.

Looking back, I regret I hadn’t the courage to allow such evidence, and trust the jury to follow the law. And attorney Minasian’s words still haunt me: “… bring forth an indictment against genocide.” History’s darkest chapters – its genocides – should be fully exposed, so their horrors are less likely to be repeated.

Notwithstanding Turkish denials, the historical evidence of the Armenian genocide is so abundant that 48 American states, and at least 25 nations, have memorialized and condemned it.

Valadao pushes resolution on genocide

Not so the American government. For years, Congressional Resolutions condemning the genocide have been defeated after intense pressure from Turkey, where American military bases exist at Turkish pleasure.

Passage of the current version, House Resolution 220, “would be a critical step towards ensuring an event like the Armenian genocide never takes place again,” says Hanford Congressman David Valadao, a co-sponsor.

But H.R. 220 has languished in the Foreign Affairs Committee for 10 months, and chances for passage are remote. The House will doubtless take the safer path, as I did in the Yanikian trial.

And once again, truth will fall victim to expedience.

David Minier of Fresno is a former district attorney of both Madera and Santa Barbara counties, and a retired Superior Court judge who sits frequently by assignment in Valley courtrooms.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article196785924.html#storylink=cpy

Killing Orders book Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide “PRE-ORDER your copy today”

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Authors: Akçam, Taner

  • Verifies archival evidence previously dismissed as being ‘fake’ in order to refute the on-going denial of the Armenian Genocide
  • Argues that the sanctioning of the genocide can finally be proven through official documents
  • Summarises meticulous research undertaken by one of the most respected, award-winning names in the field

The book represents an earthquake in genocide studies, particularly in the field of Armenian Genocide research. A unique feature of the Armenian Genocide has been the long-standing efforts of successive Turkish governments to deny its historicity and to hide the documentary evidencesurrounding it. This book provides a major clarification of the often blurred lines between facts and truth in regard to these events. The authenticity of the killing orders signed by Ottoman Interior Minister Talat Pasha and the memoirs of the Ottoman bureaucrat Naim Efendi have been two of the most contested topics in this regard. The denialist school has long argued that these documents and memoirs were all forgeries, produced by Armenians to further their claims. Taner Akçam provides the evidence to refute the basis of these claims and demonstrates clearly why the documents can be trusted as authentic, revealing the genocidal intent of the Ottoman-Turkish government towards its Armenian population. As such, this work removes a cornerstone from the denialist edifice, and further establishes the historicity of the Armenian Genocide.

to Order: http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319697864

Sonia Mabrouk (CNews) questions Turkey’s ambassador and introduces Armenian genocide

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The excellent CNews journalist, Sonia Mabrouk, on January 25 interviewed Turkey’s ambassador to France, Ismail Hakki Musa, on the Turkish offensive against Kurdish fighters in Syria.

On the possible Syrian civilian casualties caused by Turkey’s attacks, the ambassador woefully misunderstood in reply to the CNews reporter: ” One thing is clear, we are driven by an ancestral desire to protect as much as possible Civilians … “ What Sonia Mabrouk retorted in a parallel with the genocide of the Armenians:” It reminds us of dark hours , “she told him. Ismail Hakki Musa noted the journalist’s skill while not understanding what the Armenian question was doing in the debate. Probably he did not remember what he said a minute ago …

According to the blogger journalist Maxime Azadi “The assessment of a week in Afrin: 59 civilians massacred, 134 wounded. 49 FDS fighters lost their lives. 308 Turkish soldiers and mercenaries killed including four officers and a commander of the mercenaries. 699 shells fired and 191 airstrikes took place, according to the FDS. “This tweet was published on the journalist’s page Friday, January 26 at 12h.

Friday, January 26, 2018,
Jean Eckian © armenews.com

Will Trump Tell the Truth About the Armenian Genocide?

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He recognized the reality that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Such daring is needed again. Armenian Genocide

By Robert M Morgenthau

As Hitler launched his invasion of Poland in 1939, he instructed his commanders “to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women and children of Polish derivation and language.” He assured his staff the world would raise little objection: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

That was a reference to the systematic destruction of the Armenian population by the Ottoman Turks beginning in 1915. World powers had offered little resistance to the slaughter as it occurred. Later, Turkey’s insistent denials made it the “forgotten genocide.”

Turkey, ostensibly an American ally, still refuses to confront its history. The US government also has failed to give the annihilation of the Armenians its due. American administrations have bowed to Turkish pressure and failed to affirm consistently a simple fact: The slaughter of the Armenians was not a mere misfortune of history but a systematic genocide.

Such reticence wasn’t necessarily surprising, given diplomats’ cautious and equivocating nature. But President Trump, in recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, seems to be signaling a new age. In 1995, Congress enacted legislation directing the State Department to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US Embassy there. Candidates Bill Clinton and George W Bush promised to move the embassy, and Barack Obama said in 2008 that “Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel.” Once elected president, all three reneged on their pledges. Now, at last, America’s Jerusalem policy is consistent with its principles and with historical fact.

That makes me optimistic that America may similarly acknowledge the historical truth of the Armenian genocide. The facts are compelling. For millennia, Armenians lived in the shadow of Mount Ararat, in what is now eastern Turkey. For much of its history, this Christian minority lived in peace with its Muslim neighbors. But as the Ottoman Empire began to disintegrate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Armenians became targets of oppression. As World War I loomed, the Turks saw the opportunity to settle their “Armenian question.”

First they arrested and executed community leaders and intellectuals. Then they drove the remaining civilians out of their homes in long “death marches” to the Syrian desert. As many as 1.5 million Armenians were murdered.

For me, this chronicle is not confined to history books. My paternal grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, was President Wilson’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire as the horror began to unfold. He quickly understood that this was slaughter on a scale the modern world had never seen. He protested to Turkish leaders, who replied that the Armenians were not American citizens and thus none of the ambassador’s concern. Besides, they said, Ambassador Morgenthau was Jewish, and the Armenians were Christian.

The Turks even threatened to pressure Washington to recall him. My grandfather’s reply was eloquent: “I could think of no greater honor than to be recalled because I, a Jew, have done everything in my power to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Christians.”

The Turks refused to relent, and my grandfather turned to his own government. He sent Washington a diplomatic cable reading: “A campaign of race extermination is in progress.” The State Department, then preoccupied with World War I, responded with indifference. Ultimately my grandfather decided to appeal to the world’s conscience through a series of speeches.

Eventually a massive aid campaign helped resettle the scattered survivors. But the genocide had exacted an unfathomable toll on the Armenian people—and on my grandfather’s spirits. He returned to the US determined to spend his days helping the survivors, sometimes appearing at Ellis Island as “Uncle Henry” to sponsor refugees who had no one to meet them. And he did something else. He taught his children and his grandchildren the history he had witnessed. The lesson he drew was clear: When principle succumbs to expediency, the inevitable result is tragedy.

That prophecy was realized when Hitler invaded Poland, emboldened by the world’s amnesia about the Armenians. It is high time for America to emerge from that amnesia.

Every April, the president issues a proclamation recognizing the atrocity that was inflicted on the Armenian people. But bowing to Turkish pressure, that proclamation has never contained the word “genocide.” That must change.

 

I do not underestimate the concerns of those who say the wrath of Turkey may work against US interests—as I do not dismiss those who say moving the embassy to Jerusalem may complicate peace negotiations. But a just and lasting world order cannot be built on falsehoods and equivocations. Let President Trump demonstrate that commitment once more by declaring the truth of the Armenian genocide. This would send clear message to the thugs in power around the world: Your criminal acts will not go unnoticed.

Armenian Genocide history lecture coming to Ohio Wesleyan University

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Historian Ronald Grigor Suny, Ph.D

Historian Ronald Grigor Suny, Ph.D

Historian Ronald Grigor Suny, Ph.D., will discuss the World War I-era Armenian Genocide when he speaks next month at Ohio Wesleyan University, OWU website reveals.

The presentation represents Ohio Wesleyan’s biennial Robert Kragalott Lecture on Genocide, Mass Atrocity, and Human Rights.

Suny’s books include “ ‘They Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else’: A History of the Armenian Genocide,” released in paperback in May.

Describing Suny’s book, reviewer Norman Naimark states: “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that there is no one else in the world who is better able than Ronald Suny to provide a one-volume history of the Armenian Genocide. This is the best book we have on the subject. The narrative is fluid, the writing is crystal clear and engaging, and the scholarship is impeccable. Scrupulously fair-minded, Suny deepens our understanding of the causes of the genocide without, however, rationalizing it.”

In the book, Suny draws on archival documents and eyewitness accounts, creating what his publishers deem “an unforgettable chronicle of a cataclysm that set a tragic pattern for a century of genocide and crimes against humanity.”

Suny currently is working on a co-authored history of Russia titled “Russia’s Empires,” a two-volume biography of Stalin, and a series of historiographical essays on Soviet history.

He has served as a chairman of the Society for Armenian Studies and on the editorial boards of Slavic Review, International Labor and Working-Class History, International Journal of Middle East Studies, and The Armenian Review among others. He has appeared on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, CBS Evening News, CNN, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers and journals.

Armenia friend former US senator Bob Dole is awarded Congressional Gold Medal

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US Senator Bob Dole,

US Senator Bob Dole,

Armenia’s great friend, former US Senator Bob Dole, was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, reported the Voice of America Armenian Service.

Dole, who was severely wounded during the Second World War, returned to a full life thanks to renowned American Armenian physician Hampar Kelikian. It was through this Armenian orthopedic surgeon that it became possible to save Bob Dole’s right hand, which all other physicians said it had to be amputated.

In the future, Senator Dole never forgot his Armenian “savior,” and had a special consideration toward the Armenian members of his staff.

As senator, Bob Dole played a key role in the founding of Armenian-American relations, said executive director Aram Hamparian of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

Senator Dole was a major supporter of Armenian Genocide recognition.

Also, he played a key role in sending aid to earthquake-hit Armenia in 1988.

In addition, Bob Dole was one of the initiators of the US assistance program to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh).

Obama Aids Apologize For Not Recognizing Armenian Genocide

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Two former aides of President Barack Obama say his administration failed by not officially declaring that the mass slaughter of Armenians roughly a century ago constituted genocide. Samantha Power, Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, said, “I’m sorry that we disappointed so many Armenian Americans.” Turkish leaders have warned for years that official U.S. recognition of an Armenian genocide would be harmful to the US’ relationship with Turkey.

Armenian Genocide denial at the root of vile events in Turkey: Turkish expert

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Publisher of The California Courier Harut Sassounian has unveiled a fresh article about prominent Turkish political scientist Cengiz Aktar who believes that the denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government is at the root of all vile events that have occurred in Turkey since 1915.

The article reads:

On Dec. 30, 2017, Cengiz Aktar, a prominent Turkish political scientist, journalist and writer, published a candid and compassionate article about the Armenian Genocide. Aktar’s article titled, “Confronting past violence with more violence,” is posted on Ahvalnews.com, an independent overseas website, beyond the reach of the Turkish government’s oppressive regime.

Prof. Aktar begins his article with a stern warning to Turkish denialists: “Unless we, as a society confront a massive crime in our past like the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and unless we commit due reparations to the descendants of innocent victims, impunity will haunt us, and even more evil will follow. This is a century-old ethical predicament with remarkably deep roots.” Aktar not only demands recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but more significantly, “reparations.”

Prof. Aktar believes that the denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government is at the root of all vile events that have occurred in Turkey since 1915: “Considering that Genocide is a substantially massive crime than any of the public, individual or collective infractions, or the incessant evils of today, if the public consciousness can stomach Genocide, it can easily stomach any lawlessness. And thus, evil begets evil. We as a society have constantly refused to bring up the events of 1915 due to the intensity of the transgressions that followed suit — directly correlated to the impunity of Genocide — as well as voluntary or forced dementia.”

Indeed, violence and injustice have become routine in Turkey due to the reluctance of dealing with the mass crimes of the Armenian Genocide: “…Collective dementia, collective violence, and collective depravity that were imposed after the transgressions of 1915 became our lifestyle. Now we have unlimited violence and depravity everywhere, inside our homes, barracks, workplaces, hospitals — in every arena, from politics to the media — against everything from humans, to animals, nature, cities, and culture. But lawlessness, impunity, injustice, and indifference are everywhere as well.”

Aktar describes the denial of the Armenian Genocide as an on-going ‘curse’ upon Turkey that has led to many of today’s evils in Turkish society: “Some kind of schizophrenia that immediately forces one to forget and try to make others forget the violence it just inflicted. This is a collective sickness that transgresses the delusions of banal everyday politics. However, the suppressed memories of the past violence keep themselves alive in the public sub-consciousness by creating more violence, testing the confines of our dementia. So much so that while trying to forget an evil, we beget a new one! Maybe this is the curse of a society that refuses to face voluntarily its past violence through involuntary confrontation with daily violence with all its sinister consequences.”

At the end of his graciously humanistic article, Aktar reposts another powerful article he had written just before 2015, on the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, in Taraf newspaper which was deleted from the website by the Turkish authorities.

In his earlier article, Prof. Aktar also blamed all the evils occurring in Turkey today due to the curse inflicted upon Turkish society by the victims of the Armenian Genocide: “Who knows, all the evil haunting us, endless mass killings, and our inability to recover from afflictions may be due to a century-old curse and a century-old lie. What do you think? This is perhaps the malediction uttered by Armenians, children, civilian women and men alike who died moaning, and buried without a coffin. It may be the storms created in our souls by the still agonizing specters of all our ill-fated citizens including Greeks and Syriacs and later Alevis and Kurds. Perhaps, the massacres which have not been accounted for since 1915 and the charge which have remained unpaid are now being paid back in different venues by the grandchildren. The curses uttered in return for the lives taken, the lives stolen, the homes plundered, the churches destroyed, the schools confiscated, and the property extorted…. ‘May God make you pay for it for all your offspring to come’… Are we paying back the price of all the injustice done so far? Does repayment manifest itself in the form of an audacity of not being able to confront with our past sins or in the form of indecency that has become our habit due to our chronic indulgence in unfairness? It seems as if our society has been decaying for a century, with festering all around.”

When Turkish leaders accept the mass crimes committed by their ancestors and make amends for them, as Prof. Aktar suggests, that is when Armenia and Turkey can establish normal diplomatic relations and only then can they put the past behind them. May Allah bestow His blessings on this righteous Turk and his pursuit of Godly justice!

Harut Sassounian, digs into Israel’s promise to not recognize Armenian Genocide

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Harut Sassounian, Publisher of The California Courier

Harut Sassounian, Publisher of The California Courier

Prominent Israeli scholar Yair Auron filed an official request with Israel’s Foreign Ministry on December 21, 2017 asking for all internal documents on agreements and commitments undertaken by the State of Israel with Turkey and Azerbaijan not to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

The request sent by Auron’s attorney Eitay Mack to the Foreign Ministry, states that “official Israeli denial of the Armenian Genocide is tied to its diplomatic and military relations with Turkey, and in recent years to the relations with Azerbaijan.”

Prof. Auron’s request under Israel’s Freedom of Information Law explains that “Turkey has purchased from Israel training and military systems worth billions of USD. The arms deals included the upgrading of planes and tanks, radar and monitoring systems, missiles and munitions.” Azerbaijan has also purchased from Israel close to $5 billion worth of advanced weaponry.

In 2011, during Knesset’s deliberations on the Armenian Genocide, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and Alex Miller, Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, unequivocally ruled out the possibility of Israel recognizing the Armenian Genocide in order not harm relations with Azerbaijan — Israel’s “key strategic ally in the Islamic world.”

Prof. Auron’s letter also quotes from several leaders of the right wing “Yisrael Beiteinu” party stating that they will ensure that the Knesset does not recognize the Armenian Genocide. “Yisrael Beiteinu” is led by Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Arye Gut, a propagandist for Azerbaijan and spokesperson for the International Israel-Azerbaijan Association, has affirmed that “Lieberman is one of the architects of the Azerbaijani-Israeli partnership.” In an interview with RTV-TV, Lieberman announced that the Armenian Genocide “was a theoretical, disputed historical issue and that the lack of recognition was not necessarily related to Turkey, but primarily to [Israel’s] strategic relations with Azerbaijan.” Prof. Auron stresses that these arguments sound very similar to those who deny the Jewish Holocaust.

As an example of Israel’s close relations with Azerbaijan, Prof. Auron’s letter reports that “613 trees were planted” on February 26, 2016, “at the Chaim Weizmann (1st President of Israel) Forest, to mark ‘24 years to the Khojaly genocide,’ in memory of 613 victims, attended by MK [Member of Knesset] Avigdor Lieberman. Only Azerbaijan and Turkey mark this ‘genocide’ event. In recent years, official Israel has become a direct and indirect supporter of the purported Khojaly genocide claim. The battle of Khojaly took place in February 1992, in the midst of a cruel war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno Karabagh province. There are several versions as to what happened there, including the number of those who perished, but one thing is not disputed among the international community — no genocide by its common definition took place there.”

Prof. Auron’s concludes his request from the Israeli government by stating: “one suspects that not only does the State of Israel ‘trade’ in the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but that it has taken upon itself real commitments on this matter, in agreements with Azerbaijan and Turkey.”

Consequently, Attorney Mack specifically demands that the Israel’s Foreign Ministry should disclose the following information:

1) “Any documentation of agreements, understandings, commitments vis-à-vis Azerbaijan and Turkey as to the question of recognizing the Armenian Genocide.”

2) “Any correspondence with Turkish or Azeri representatives on the question of recognizing the Armenian Genocide.”

3) “Any documentation of meetings or communications between the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Turkish or Azeri representatives on the question of recognizing the Armenian Genocide.”

4) “Decisions and position papers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as to the question of recognizing the Armenian Genocide, in view of Turkey and Azerbaijan’s objection.”

It remains to be seen if the Israeli Foreign Ministry complies with Prof. Auron’s legal request. Both the American and British governments, which have similar laws on requirements to disclose internal information, have responded to similar requests from their own citizens, making public secret documents on the Armenian Genocide. It would be understandable if certain portions of the disclosed documents were to be blacked out by the Israeli government for confidential reasons, to protect the identities of those providing the information or for national security reasons.

World Union of Jewish Students recognizes Armenian Genocide

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The World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) has formally recognised the Armenian Genocide at its 44th World Congress in Israel, after a Jewish-Australian advocate, Ariel Zohar was among the key speakers for the motion, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).

Zohar, who was behind the recent Victorian Young Labor motion recognising the Armenian Genocide, was joined in his advocacy of this historic motion by Aaron Meyer and Yos Tarshish.

ANC-AU Executive Director Haig Kayserian thanked the WUJS on this important statement for human rights.

“We thank Ariel Zohar and his colleagues at the World Union of Jewish Students Congress for passing a motion that does not only recognise the genocide committed against the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians of the Ottoman Empire, it also ‘condemns’ and ‘rejects’ any ‘attempt to deny, distort, or ignore the historical reality of this genocide’,” Kayserian said.

“This sends a strong message to the governments of Israel, and others like Australia, that human rights are not there to be bargained for diplomatic gain, no matter the circumstance,” he added.