Citing absence of “Armenian noise” as proof apparently ignoring this blog’s entry, officials in Azerbaijan are denying reports that three female Armenian journalists have been arrested in Nakhichevan, reports Russia’s Regnum News.

Representatives from Azerbaijan’s cabinet Ministry of Interior told Regnum the reports by “Realni Azerbaijan” (whose editor was sentenced to 2 ½ years last month by an Azerbaijani court) are false, because the Russian TV that the journalists supposedly work for is not talking about arrests, Armenia is not making noise and local human rights NGOs in Nakhichevan are silent.

According to the report by “Realni Azerbaijan” mentioned in this blog, three foreign female journalists were arrested by the local police in Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave after a villager overheard them talking Armenian.  The villager who tipped the journalists in was instructed by the police to say that the journalists were Russian and not Armenian.

The identities of the reportedly arrested journalists remain unknown at this time.  I tried calling the local prosecutor’s office in Kergerli region yesterday, where the arrest took place, but the phone number – found on an official Azerbaijani website – seemed disconnected.

Newly found mass grave believed to be from the Armenian genocide manipulated in Turkey

While for an American diplomat a simple word like genocide can mean end of a career, it doesn’t seem Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide is simply a refusal to label the mass murder of 1.5 Armenians a “genocide.” There is much more than that.

Photographs by Ülkede Özgür Gündem (a Kurdish newspaper in Turkey that was closed down after reporting the discovery of the mass grave) of a possible Armenian mass grave before manipulated by the Turkish Historical Society

Turkey is not simply rejecting the word genocide; the denial is on micro level as seen in recent developments. The skeletons of a newly discovered mass grave thought to be from the Genocide, for example, have been reportedly changed and displaced by the Turkish Historical Society.

The Zaman newspaper from Turkey reports on April 24, 2007 that David Gaunt – a historian from Sweden – had traveled to Turkey this week to participate in a joint investigation of the mass grave. After seeing the site, Prof. Gaunt refused to continue his participation because the initial photographs of the mass grave (taken by a Turkish-language Kurdish newspaper) from October of 2006 – when it was discovered – were quite different from the site he was taken to. He told Zaman, “My impression is that this grave is one in which no scientific research can be carried out. The grave has undergone numerous changes so it is not recognizable.”

As our blogging-made-news article reported last year, the site was discovered in October of 2006 by local Kurds in the Xirabebaba (Kuru) village of Nusaybin district in southeastern Turkey’s Mardin region. Several villagers were digging graves for a relative to be buried in, when they found a cave of approximately 200 skeletons. The villagers thought they had uncovered a mass burial of massacred Armenians.

There were several reports (received via private communication) that the mass grave was dumped with soil by the Turkish military. But soon I learned that the Turkish Historical Society had proclaimed the mass graves was from Roman times.

Before traveling to Turkey for the investigation, Prof. Gaunt had sent the following e-mail to a group of colleagues and students on February 27, 2007.

As you will remember Yusuf Halacoglu went out very aggressively and challenged me in the Turkish press and TV to come to the grave. I answered and said that I could come during 23-25 April and I canceled some lectures during that week.

Since the time that he challenged me in the media – two weeks ago – I have not heard a word from Halacoglu – although I have previously received faxes, regular mail and even telephone calls from the staff of the Turkish Historical Society. So they know where I work. I have repeatedly written to Halacoglu during the past weeks. No result. Given his grandstand performance previously, this silence is unnatural. It leads to the conclusion that he is no longer interested in making a truly scientific investigation of the mass-grave find. What could be the reason?

In order to give this investigation some scientific legitimacy, I had suggested that we agree to some “rules of the game” in case of disagreement. Among the things I suggested was that an international group of crime scene investigators (or the like) from for instance South America would be the first persons to enter the site. Their role would be to ascertain if the site had been manipulated in any serious way, if the bodies were intact, if there were signs of tampering with the evidence or planting of other evidence. Only if and when this team gave a clear OK signal, would any of the other investigators enter the site. I think it is a very reasonable request that we have guarantees that the site is worth investigating, and I don’t think that the Turkish side could argue against this procedure.

Are we forced to conclude, by Halacoglu’s silence that the site has indeed already been prepared, but that there is now fear that properly trained experts would easily discover the manipulation? In that case, of course, it would be reasonable for the Turkish Historical Society to want to forget all about having made an invitation and making a fuss over my participation. At present there are few alternative interpretations to Halacoglu’s silence other than that he regrets the publicity that he has given this matter.

Apparently Prof. Gaunt’s fear turned to be true: the Turkish Historical Society had manipulated the mass grave.

The Turkish cover up of the Armenian Genocide is not simply a war of a term, but a refusal by the ultra-nationalist Turkish foundation to admit that their government, in the words of Turkish historian Taner Akcam, has committed a crime against Turkey’s native Armenian population. No wonder why, as the founder of Boulder’s Alternative Radio David Barsamian said past Sunday, Turkish Ambassadors use passive voice when justifying the genocide, “something terrible happened.”

Guess what? The Armenian Genocide never happened, reports Turkey’s ultranationalist Sabah newspaper on April 24 – the day the Armenian Genocide is commemorated.

Guess why? A Swedish commander in Turkey wrote on April 23, 1917, “as an eye witness, I object to genocide claims.”

In case you did not catch the unintended sarcasm… the term “genocide” was first used in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin.

Somebody call The Onion and tell them they have lost to Sabah.

90 years old letter of a witness from the first hand: “genocide did not happen”

The letter written by a Swedish commander witnessing the events in 1915 and published at a newspaper on 23 April 1917 has been revealed: I never saw Turks doing genocide. It is my responsibility to object to these claims. Emigration was a military compulsion for Turks.”

LINK

One can’t get more angry after finding out that a group of Turks were out in New York City streets on the eve of April 24 – Armenian Genocide commemoration day – denying the Armenian Genocide.

A Shameful Act: The Denial of the Armenian Genocide (photo credit)

 iArarat informs:

Little Green Footballs (LGF) the notorious blog that broke the news of the Beirut bombing photography doctoring by a journalist working for the Reuters has an entry on what it calls the “professionally-staged demonstration yesterday by a Turkish group denying the Armenian genocide.”

A video, via ANCA, shows the anti-Armenian denial in NY.  Another interesting video summarizes the Turkish propaganda on YouTube.com.

By the way, this blogger, along with a few other members of the Armenian community, attended a denialist lecture by Justin McCarthy in Denver last on April 14, 2007 organized by the Turkish community.  I was not angry, but I was sad.  Sad – because I couldn’t understand why McCarthy hated Armenians so much, why he would call an entire people “wining,” and why he was there to make the Turks hate us even more.

At the end of the denialist lecture, one Turkish woman told me that I had beautiful eyes.  I warned her she was not going to like my response.  “Armenians say our eyes are big because of the suffering that we have gone through.  It is the Armenian pain that has taken our eyes out.” 

In a few hours – on April 24, 2007, our eyes will be even bigger, and perhaps wet as well.  And yes, even if we forgive one day, we will never forget.

The ‘apology’ quoting America’s Ambassador to Armenia John Evans for saying he shouldn’t have referred to the Armenian genocide as such, turns out, was a fabrication by the State Department.

As the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, and a career diplomat, Evans knew the uses of circumlocution. Some words, he understood, must be avoided. But then, speaking in Fresno, Los Angeles and Berkeley, Calif., two years ago, Evans violated U.S. policy by declaring that Armenians were the victims of a genocide from 1915 to 1923.  

When his comments became widely known, the State Department issued apologies. The statements included made-up quotes that Evans now says others crafted and attributed to him.

“Let’s put it this way: I had no role in it,” he said of the statements.

LINK

Editorial

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/opinion/13fri2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 

Turkey and the U.N.’s Cover-Up

Published: April 13, 2007

More than 90 years ago, when Turkey was still part of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish nationalists launched an extermination campaign there that killed 1.5 million Armenians. It was the 20th century’s first genocide. The world noticed, but did nothing, setting an example that surely emboldened such later practitioners as Hitler, the Hutu leaders of Rwanda in 1994 and today’s Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Turkey has long tried to deny the Armenian genocide. Even in the modern-day Turkish republic, which was not a party to the killings, using the word genocide in reference to these events is prosecuted as a serious crime. Which makes it all the more disgraceful that United Nations officials are bowing to Turkey’s demands and blocking this week’s scheduled opening of an exhibit at U.N. headquarters commemorating the 13th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide because it mentions the mass murder of the Armenians.

Ankara was offended by a sentence that explained how genocide came to be recognized as a crime under international law: “Following World War I, during which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes.” The exhibit’s organizer, a British-based antigenocide group, was willing to omit the words “in Turkey.” But that was not enough for the U.N.’s craven new leadership, and the exhibit has been indefinitely postponed.

It’s odd that Turkey’s leaders have not figured out by now that every time they try to censor discussion of the Armenian genocide, they only bring wider attention to the subject and link today’s democratic Turkey with the now distant crime. As for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his inexperienced new leadership team, they have once again shown how much they have to learn if they are to honorably and effectively serve the United Nations, which is supposed to be the embodiment of international law and a leading voice against genocide.

Months after annihilating the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world, Azerbaijan honored a nearby Muslim monument in stamps.

An ongoing Google search about Jughacide (Jugha + cide/kill) – the destruction of the world’s largest Armenian medieval cemetery in Jugha (Djulfa or Julfa) by Azerbaijani authorities in Nakhichevan– introduced me to a website that sells Azerbaijani postal stamps since 1992.

(Gulustan tomb by Digital Image, 2003)

I was shocked to find out that on May 22, 2006, just a few months after wiping out the cemetery and banning European delegations from visiting the vandalism site, Azerbaijan had issued a stamp with the depiction of Gulustan Tomb – a medieval Muslim monument only a few miles away from the barbarized cemetery.

I couldn’t help but think about the irony and the cynicism of honoring a Muslim monument – just next to the vanished cemetery – in a time when Azerbaijan vehemently denied (and still does) that the vandalism ever happened. What this a coincidence or a message to the Azerbaijani people? If it was a message, then what was it? A sense of satisfaction of finalizing the Jughacide? A reminder that the Azerbaijani people should only think about the Muslim heritage? What about the sarcastic speeches of Azerbaijani tolerance?

Interestingly, the same Gulustan tomb was already depicted, among with other monuments, on a 1999 stamp that commemorated the 75th of Nakhichevan – the birthplace of then president Heydar Aliyev who has stamps for his 80th Anniversary, for his death, etc.

The stamp for Aliyev’s 70th Anniversary had three grammar errors in one word: Nakhichevan, the Armenian region (now part of Azerbaijan due to J.V. Stalin’s order in the 1920s) where Aliyev was born. The regular Azerbaijani spelling for Nakhichevan is Naxçıvan (“c” with a tale on the bottom and “i” without the dot on the top), yet the 1993 stamp wrote the name as “Haxcivan” (H- for Heidar Aliyev?).

In 1994, Aliyev was replaced by Prehistoric Animals – the Dinosaurs – namely Coelophysis and Segisaurus, Pentaceratops and tyrannosaurids, Segnosaurus and oviraptor, Albertosaurus and corythosaurus, Iguanodons, Stegosaurus and allosaurus, and Tyrannosaurus and saurolophus, perhaps in an attempt to document the early days of Azerbaijani culture destroyed by Armanian terrorists. Well, the last one was a joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Azerbaijani authorities claimed that Armenians were responsibly for the extinction of the Dinosaurs. But if you pay attention to the stamps, you will see that all stamps, but one, depict fighting animals, and this perhaps symbolizes the anger in Azerbaijan at the time although the war with Armenia was already over.

Another war, namely the one on terror, has also become a theme for an Azerbaijani stamp. On September 18, 2002, Azerbaijan issued a stamp with New York’s twin towers and the phrase, “Freedom for All.” Are the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh part of that “All”? Not the vanished cemetery in Nakhichevan for sure.