O Brasil e o genocídio dos Armênios - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

 O genocídio dos Armênios: cada vez mais atual (e o Brasil, o que vai fazer?)

Quando Hitler estava planejando o genocídio dos judeus, ele se “inspirou” no massacre dos armênios pelos Otomanos durante a Grande Guerra: “Quem se lembra agora dos Armênios?”, ele afirmou.

Pois Joe Biden se lembrou agora, como outros líderes ocidentais se lembraram antes dele. 

Mas o peso dos EUA — cujos cônsules no Império Otomano informaram e alertaram o Departamento de Estado sobre os terriveis massacres, talvez 1,5 milhão de vítimas — é notavelmente maior, e os turcos não poderão retaliar como já fizeram em outros casos.

O Brasil tem um certo número de Armênios, inclusive diplomatas:  eles vão pressionar o Congresso para que o Brasil siga desta vez os EUA numa causa claramente humanitária?

Eu acho que o Itamaraty poderia examinar a questão!

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brasília, 26/04/2021

Armenian Genocide Descendants Face Another Turkish Onslaught - Amy Austin Holmes, Lerna Ekmekçioğlu

Armenian Genocide Descendants Face Another Turkish Onslaught, One Century Later

Authors: 
• Amy Austin Holmes
 
•  Lerna Ekmekçioğlu

Belfer Center, Harvard University, November 25, 2019

One of the deadliest sites of the Armenian genocide – Ras al-Ayn – has once again fallen under Turkish control because of a ceasefire agreement negotiated by the United States. The incursion of Turkish-backed rebels in the swath of land ceded to Turkey has forced Armenian families to flee – one century after their ancestors fled those who sought to exterminate them. When Turkish President Erdogan visited the White House on November 13, President Trump failed to mention the ethnic cleansing campaign and assault on the descendants of Armenian genocide survivors.

The U.S. President paved the way for Turkey’s military to invade northern Syria earlier this fall when he ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops against the advice of the U.S. military, key advisors, and members of Congress from both political parties.

Now, more than 100 years after the Armenian genocide, the United States negotiated a deal that ceded a swath of land between Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn (Serêkaniyê in Kurdish) to Turkey, granting Erdogan’s regime de-facto occupation of additional Syrian borderlands.

In 1915, long-held fears of territorial dismemberment and anti-Armenian sentiment led the Ottoman Turkish government to launch a brutal campaign against its Armenian population, who were killed, forced into Muslim households, or deported into remote areas to perish. Ras al-Ayn became one of twenty five concentration camps where deported Armenians from Anatolia were settled temporarily.  In 1916 the Ottoman government ordered the massacre of Armenians in two major camps (the other in Deir Ezzor is known as “Armenia’s Auschwitz”). An estimated 70,000 Armenians in Ras al-Ayn alone were killed by Turks and their militias. They were buried in mass graves or just left in open fields where bones of victims can still be found today.

Those who survived put down roots in the area, which enabled a multiethnic society to develop in northeastern Syria. The current cross-border military operation, however, seeks to change these dynamics permanently. Houses owned by Armenians, as well as other Christian and Kurdish families are being looted by Turkish-backed militias. “Taken by al-Jabha al-Shamiyya” has been scrolled on the gates of their homes to signal to other Turkish-commanded militias that the properties had already been confiscated.  Since the start of the Turkish assault, known as Operation Peace Spring, more than 200 civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. All 30 Armenian families living in the region recently ceded to Turkey between Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn/Serêkaniyê have reportedly fled. Armenians are also under attack by the Islamic State (ISIS) in other parts of Northeast Syria. Just recently, Ibrahim Hevsop Bedo, an Armenian-Catholic priest, and his father were killed by ISIS gunmen while traveling to Deir Ezzor to restore an Armenian Catholic church.

The Turkish incursion has now forcibly displaced approximately 300,000 people from the so-called “safe zone” where Turkish-backed militias operate under the umbrella of the “Syrian National Army” and include groups known for their brutality including Ahrar al-Sharqiya, Jaysh al-Islam, Sultan Murad, al-Jabha al-Shamiyya, Hamza Brigade, and others.  On October 12, Hevrin Khalaf, a Kurdish female politician and head of the Syria Future Party, was captured and executed by Ahrar al-Sharqiya. Amnesty International referred to her murder and other summary executions as war crimes. In recent testimony, Syria Envoy James Jeffrey acknowledged that the State Department was investigating crimes committed by Turkey and Turkish-backed rebels. In a leaked memo, Ambassador William Roebuck, the top American diplomat working in northern Syria, wrote: “Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria, spearheaded by armed Islamist groups on its payroll, represents an intentioned-laced effort at ethnic cleansing.” 

President Erdogan publicly announced at the United Nations General Assembly intentions to deport Syrian refugees living in Turkey into the areas now being depopulated by Turkey and its militias.  The forced return of refugees into a war zone is illegal under international human rights law, yet Erdogan’s plan has not been denounced strongly by world leaders, in part because he regularly threatens to send Syrian refugees and captured ISIS members to Europe and other countries.  

In recent days, the House of Representatives recognized the Armenian genocide and condemned the murder of about 1.5 million Armenians. On the same day, the House also passed a bill sanctioning Turkey for recent actions. While these actions are long overdue, the decision to move this legislation now signals unprecedented congressional anger at Turkey, a NATO ally that will remain mostly rhetorical as the Senate is unlikely to pass a genocide resolution or adapt meaningful sanctions.

Ignoring and rewarding Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian ruler sends a terrible message, condoning ongoing war crimes by Turkish forces and allied militias in Syria. Some of these groups actually film themselves carrying out executions of civilians.  

Turkey and Turkish-backed militias should be sanctioned, and displaced families should be allowed to return to their homes. The United States should not lend its support for the Turkish government’s goal of re-engineering the demographics of a geography already stained by genocide a century ago.  It is not too late to reverse some of the damage that has been done. 

Amy Austin Holmes is a visiting scholar at the Middle East Initiative of Harvard University, and the author of Social Unrest and American Military Bases in Turkey and Germany since 1945, (Cambridge University Press). She has carried out research in Northeast Syria since 2015, and has conducted the first survey of the Syrian Democratic Forces.  Lerna Ekmekçioğlu is an Associate Professor of History at MIT and the author of Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey, published by Stanford University Press. She studies and teaches about women’s experiences during and after wars.

*** To watch a clip from Amy Austin Holmes' video interview on this subject, click here. 

Statements and views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Harvard University, the Harvard Kennedy School, or the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.  – Via Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

Deputados alemães reconhecem o genocídio dos armênios pela Turquia - BBC

German MPs recognise Armenian 'genocide' amid Turkish fury

BBC World Service, June 2, 2016

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36433114 

 Persecuted Armenian intellectuals were remembered at a ceremony in Istanbul in April

The German parliament has approved a resolution declaring that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One was a "genocide".

Turkey is bitterly opposed to the Bundestag (lower house) resolution, and has warned that it could hurt ties.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their people died in the atrocities of 1915. Turkey says the toll was much lower and rejects the term "genocide".

The timing is awkward, as the EU needs Turkey to help stem the migrant influx.

More than 20 nations, including France and Russia, as well as Pope Francis, have recognised the 1915 killings as genocide.

Turkey denies that there was a systematic campaign to slaughter Armenians as an ethnic group during WW1. It also points out that many Turkish civilians died in the turmoil during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was not in the Bundestag for the vote. Her Christian Democrats (CDU), their coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens all supported the resolution. 

Turkish opposition

German MPs came under pressure from Turks in the run-up to the vote, including threatening and abusive e-mails, German ARD news reports.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said approval of the resolution would be "irrational". And Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoned Mrs Merkel, warning her that ties would suffer "if (Germany) falls into such a game". 

The resolution uses the word "genocide" in the headline and text. It also says Germany - at the time an ally of the Ottomans - bears some guilt for doing nothing to stop the killings. 

Under a deal struck in March, Turkey agreed to take back migrants - including Syrians - arriving on the Greek islands, in return for EU aid and a pledge to give Turks visa-free travel to most of Europe. 

Germany accepted 1.1 million migrants last year - by far the highest influx in the EU.

German-Turkish relations were also strained this year by the case of comedian Jan Boehmermann, whose obscene poem about Mr Erdogan prompted a criminal complaint from the Turkish leader.

Last month a court in Hamburg ruled that Boehmermann's poem was satire, but banned him from repeating the sexual references in it, deeming them unacceptable. 

Germany plans to repeal a clause in the constitution prohibiting insults that target foreign leaders - the clause invoked by Turkey in the complaint.

Armenian genocide dispute

■   Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, whose empire was disintegrating

■   Many of the victims were civilians deported to barren desert regions where they died of starvation and thirst. Thousands also died in massacres

■   Armenia says up to 1.5 million people were killed. Turkey says the number of deaths was much smaller

■   Most non-Turkish scholars of the events regard them as genocide - as do more than 20 states including France, Germany and Russia, and some international bodies such as the European Parliament

■   Turkey rejects the term "genocide", maintaining that many of the dead were killed in clashes during World War One, and that many ethnic Turks also suffered in the conflict

Find out more about what happened

Armenian tragedy still raw in Turkey