After years of study and research, Taner Akçam, the Turkish historian who has provided the world with the overwhelming evidence of the Armenian genocide, feels that the turning point has come, the one he has long awaited. «Biden’s words put enormous pressure on Turkey – he says, without hiding the strong emotion, al Courier from Clark University in Massachusetts where he teaches – because now the lawsuits for compensation will open and because Ankara will be politically isolated ».
It is the first time that an American president officially recognizes the genocide of the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire. What will happen now?
“It is a very important recognition that he has been waiting for for years, because the American judicial system foresees that lawsuits can be started once a genocide has been recognized. And since both Congress and the White House have taken this step at this point, companies and states that profited from the massacre of Armenians or were involved in it may be held accountable to American courts if they have had relations with the Armenians. United States. In California, dozens of lawsuits have already been made but the judges have decided to defer to a federal decision on the subject that has now arrived ».
So will justice be done?
“Certainly not in the short term, but finally a new path is opening up, it will take years to have fruit”.
What will the consequences be for Turkey?
«For Ankara it will mean total isolation. The country will be placed in the same category as North Korea and African regimes. But it is a situation that Turkey will certainly not be able to endure either economically or politically. This is a bit like what happened with Switzerland which, during the Second World War, allowed the Nazis to deposit gold stolen from Jews in the country’s banks. In the end, the Swiss authorities had to reach an agreement and in 2008 they agreed to pay 1.25 billion dollars to the survivors of the Holocaust or to the descendants of the victims ”.
In 1976 you were sentenced to ten years in prison for having publicly discussed the Armenian genocide, the following year you escaped from prison and fled to Germany, today you are in the United States, do you also consider yourself a survivor?
“Surely having witnessed the killing of so many people by police officers in the 1970s led me to research the history of violence and torture in Turkey and, finally, the Armenian genocide. In those years I was also influenced by the murder of Hrant Dink ».
His book “Killing Orders” is a crucial element for the recognition of the genocide. You said you published it “in the hope of eliminating the last onebrick of the wall of denial ”. How did you come to discover the archive?
“There was this huge volume of documentation collected by the Armenian Catholic priest Krikor Guerguerian (1911-1988) who during the Medz Yeghern (“ Great Crime ”) witnessed the killing of both parents and 10 of his brothers. He spent most of his life collecting over 100,000 pages of documents, in view of the preparation of a doctoral thesis on the Armenian genocide that never saw the light, but had not granted anyone access. In 2015 I called my nephew Edmund Guerguerian, it was the 100th anniversary of the genocide, and I said “But do you want to take them to your grave?”. So he allowed me to access the archive and the book was born ».
And what did he find?
“I found the private diaries handwritten by Talet Pasha, one of the triumvirs who actually ruled the Ottoman Empire during the Great War who worked in the deportation office, I compared them to the telegrams of Pasha and other bureaucrats that Ankara supported. were false and, instead, coincided point by point. One of these reads: “The rights of all Armenians on Turkish soil, such as the right to life and work, have been suppressed; no one should be spared, not even the infant in the cradle ”».
However, the Turkish government continues to deny the genocide.
“Denial has nothing to do with the truth demonstrated by the documents because it is a political issue. Now, with the move by the White House, the pressure on Ankara will be enormous ».
April 25, 2021 (change April 26, 2021 | 01:24)
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