GNP 2001 Genocide Letter to the Editor

Letter - Raffi Kojian

March 16, 2001 12 AM PT

Like many of the readers, I have grown tired of reading about the flag

and genocide debates in the Glendale News-Press. Unfortunately, the

continued printing of genocide denial has forced me to write as well.

As an Armenian whose grandparents were deported by Ottoman as well as

Kemalist troops, I just ask that this issue be treated by the media like

the Jewish Holocaust. After being subjected to what we were, it is

incredibly insulting to have to continually read lies and unfounded

statements about the events of World War I.

The basic facts are simply not debatable.

The vast majority of Armenians were law-abiding citizens of the

Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government ordered that across Anatolia the

following events would occur in all the towns and villages:

First, the weapons were gathered. Second, the men were separated and

either immediately shot or worked to death. Then, the women, children and

elderly were forced to walk into the deserts, without any provisions made

for them en route, or if they survived, upon arrival. These “death

marches” as they were called were incredibly inhumane, with constant

attacks, murders, rapes, suicides, and after all this, most who

survivedwere killed upon arrival in the deserts of Syria.

These events, orchestrated by the Turkish government, clearly fit the

definition of genocide. The well-funded campaign to deny these events by

the Turkish government is an attempt to escape responsibility. There is,

of course, no proof to back up the denial, so they invent it as they go

along.

The favorite Turkish-government-funded scholar, who is constantly

quoted by the denialists, may well have been right in saying 2.5-million

Muslims died during the same time as the Armenian Genocide. Leaving it at

that, he implies that the Armenians were responsible. In reality however,

these “2.5-million Muslims” include the Arabs that the Turks killed, the

Turks that the Australians, Brits, French and Russians killed, and even

the Turks and Kurds that died from the diseases spread by unburied

Armenians and the food shortages after murdering all the Armenian

farmers!

Another of the favorite denial methods is to say that 1.5-million

Armenians could never have been killed, so we are complete liars. Of

course, they use the sources of their choice and ignore those that put

the Armenian population at between 2.1 million and 2.5 million.

They also imply that there is some magic number of deaths that qualify

the events as genocide, and that if it is any less than 1.5 million then it is not genocide. That, of course, is also nonsense.

I just wish that this entire subject were not printed in the Glendale

News-Press as if it were a scholarly discussion that could go either way.

The events were clearly a genocide, and to allow denialists space in the

forum is unfair to Armenians.

I believe the News-Press would never print such denialism about the

Jewish Holocaust, and this second-class treatment in Glendale, of all

places, is very sad, indeed.

RAFFI KOJIAN

Source: https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/news/tn-gnp-xpm-2001-03-16-export39997-story.html