Armenia/Turkey: 1915 Massacre Under Spotlight At Czech Conference

April 5, 2006
RFE/RL Newswire
By Robert Parsons

PRAGUE, 5 April, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The dissonance between the high baroque hallways of the Czech parliament building and the horror depicted in the black and white images that hung from their walls this week could scarcely have been more stark.

The faded photographs showed a nation in flight, charred bodies by the side of the road, severed heads on pikes held by grinning guards, clusters of skeletal figures abandoned in the Mesopotamian desert, orphaned children wide-eyed with fear. In short, a people tormented, slaughtered, humiliated, and starved.

Horrific By Any Name Call it what you will: genocide, mass murder or, as the Turkish government would have it, plain simple deportation, the deaths of so many Armenians in 1915-16 have come to be seen as one of the defining horrors of 20th century history. The photographs were there for an international conference organized by the Czech parliament entitled "The Armenian Genocide."
[...]
German academic Dr. Tessa Hofmann set the tone. "We have to be very aware that if a country is not pushed forward as Germany was after the Second World War by the victorious allies nothing really happens," Hofmann said. "And therefore the question about Turkey's entry into the European Union. My conviction is that Turkey first of all has to give freedom of speech, research, and opinion to deal with its past."
[...]
There was no one to put the official Turkish point of view, but Yeldag Ozcan, a Turkish emigre writer on minority rights in Turkey, said she welcomed the pressure from the EU for Turkey to cast light on the dark corners of its past. More people were now beginning to discuss the Armenian issue and other taboos. But, she said, Turkey needed to go much further.
[...]
"I think there cannot be a dialogue [with the Armenians] without an apology." Ozcan said. "We cannot start a dialogue as if nothing has happened. First we have to admit that we and our ancestors are the guilty side, we have to accept there was a crime. We have to apologize and then we can start a dialogue."
[...]
"Without the genocide, there would not be a UN Convention and, further on, there would not be a permanent tribunal of the United Nations," Hofmann said. "You can say that 100 years of time and reaction is a slow speed but, on the other hand, there was a reaction and we can only hope that the punishment of genocide will lead to prevention."

I hope that Czech President Vaclav Klaus was there to educate himself. See his statement to the German daily Der Spiegel HERE.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.