Religion: Turks blame Armenian quarry blasts for damaging church in Ani. The dispute is but one legacy of countries' bloody, bitter history.

August 30, 2001

By AMBERIN ZAMAN SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

ANI, Turkey -- Towering above a bleak, wind-swept plateau near Turkey's border with Armenia, the red stone cathedral of Ani has defied wars, earthquakes and time.

But today, one of the holiest sites of Armenian Christian Orthodoxy is facing what an archeologist here calls the biggest threat of its millennium-old existence: dynamite blasts from four stone quarries less than a quarter of a mile away in Armenian territory.

The stone, ironically, is being mined to build a Christian Orthodox cathedral in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, that will look similar to the one in Ani. Turkish officials say the deafening explosions have shaken the area for two years despite their pleas to Armenia for the quarrying to stop. The United States, France and the United Nations have backed Turkey's appeal.

"Not only the cathedral but most of the monuments here will soon collapse," said Beyhan Karamaragli, a Turkish archeologist who has been leading excavations here since 1988. "This is cultural genocide."

Genocide is a particularly loaded word here. Armenians often use it to describe how they say the Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million Armenians during World War I. Turkish officials today acknowledge that as many as 600,000 Armenians died but portray them as victims of civil disorders, exposure and starvation as they fled southward to escape the conflict.

The dispute over those deaths still stands in the way of diplomatic and trade relations between Armenia and Turkey, as does Armenia's continued occupation of territory claimed by Turkey's closest regional ally, Azerbaijan.

Gagik Gurjan, head of the cultural heritage department of the Armenian Culture Ministry, said geologists at the quarries had been consulted and that they had reported that the quarrying of stone there could not be damaging the cathedral in Ani.

"I think some people in Turkey are using this situation for political ends," he said. "If the Turks hadn't destroyed these monuments themselves over the centuries, they would have nothing to complain about now."

"What's more," he added, "there is a gorge between them, and the shock waves from the explosions could not reach or in any way affect any building or monument in Ani."

Trying to break the ice, retired diplomats and academics from Turkey and Armenia have set up a commission to promote cooperation in educational and cultural projects. At their first meeting last month, in Geneva, they reportedly discussed a joint effort to preserve the ruins of this walled medieval town.

Until the early decades of the 20th century, at least 2 million Armenians are believed to have lived in Turkey, mostly in the east. Today, about 60,000 Armenians remain in Turkey; most of them live in Istanbul.

Nowhere are traces of the Anatolia region's Armenian heritage more visible than in Ani, 27 miles northeast of the Turkish town of Kars.

Ani rises above the emerald green waters of the Arpa River, which separates Turkey from Armenia. Stubby pillars that once supported a 14th century stone bridge between the two countries remain as a symbol of the neighbors' stormy ties.

Armenians and Turks tell different versions of Ani's history.

Turkish historians insist that Ani holds greater significance for Turkey because it was one of the first Anatolian cities to be conquered by the Seljuk Turks when they swept in from Central Asia in the early 11th century. Armenian rule, they say, did not last more than 50 to 70 years before defeat by the Seljuks.

According to Armenian accounts, Ani was ruled for much of its history by a succession of Armenian kings, and it was their capital for at least two centuries. In the 10th century, Ani was glorified by the Armenians as "the city of a thousand and one churches," with the cathedral as its centerpiece.

"If so, why are they [Armenians] willfully destroying it now?" asked Karamaragli, pointing to a 30-foot-long crack in the southwest corner of the cathedral, which she says widens with the tremors from the quarries.

The septuagenarian archeologist says she has records of every blast and every crack and hole resulting from each explosion. The nearby Menucehr, the oldest Seljuk mosque in the region, has suffered some of the worst damage.

In this earthquake-weary country, residents of the neighboring village of Ocakli often mistake the tremors for quakes. "Our children are terrorized. Our cows have stopped producing milk," said Muhammad Sevcan, a local farmer.

In an embarrassment for the Armenian government, an ear-splitting explosion rocked the site in mid-June just as a group of Armenian Americans had gathered to pray at the cathedral. They were part of a 150-member group of Armenian Americans on a pilgrimage through Turkey to retrace the steps of St. Gregory.

"They were terrified--they thought it was a bomb," recalled Mehmet Kinacioglu, a Turkish tourist who was present.

Pilgrims reportedly sent letters of complaint to the Armenian government. So did the Istanbul-based Armenian patriarch, Mesrob II.

No explosions have been heard here since mid-July.

Turkish officials, though, say they doubt that the respite will last long. They point to a May 5 report from Russia's Interfax news agency quoting an Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying the quarrying would stop by the end of that month. "In June, the explosions were continuing," said a senior Turkish diplomat, "so who is to say they will not resume again?" Gurjan, the Armenian official, said the blasts have stopped. But it wasn't because of complaints from Turkey, he said, but because workers are now using different quarrying methods.

Staff writer Robyn Dixon in The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.

 

The L.A. Times is owned by the Chicago Tribune.

The L.A. Times has not yet fired Amberin Zaman.
She uses “Los Angeles Times” underneath her
HOLOCAUST DENIER NAME.

If a reporter said the Jewish Holocaust was an “allegation disputed between American Jews and neo-Nazi’s descendants of Germans slaughtered in the ghetto riots,” there would be firings and resignations, apologies and corrections at those newspapers involved. Exactly why is the Armenian Holocaust denial to receive anything less?

Amberin Zaman has DENIED GENOCIDE TIME AND TIME AGAIN! What is going on?
READ ON!

“Reporter" Amberin Zaman - Ankara Turkey's State Tool. She is an Armenian Holocaust Denial MACHINE - prostituting the L.A. Times name to spew her hatred in papers like the Chicago Tribune and Philadelphia Inquirer. WHY IS THIS STILL GOING ON?

Holocaust or Genocide denial is a hate crime of unparalleled ferocity, as Professor Israel Charny has said, “killing the victim people twice — once with genocide and then again with denial.”

The Armenian Genocide – the most thoroughly documented genocide on the planet -- is nothing but “allegations” according to Ankara, Turkey-based reported Amberin Zaman, published January 5th in the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Philadelphia Inquirer!

Turkish Denial has become a common topic for High Schools term papers -- largely thanks to the work of System of a Down, a rock group of Americans of Armenian descent-- and in Colleges and Universities -- thanks to Turkey’s interesting, almost amusing omnipresent denial publications sent to colleges libraries from Ankara, Turkey financed by U.S. Tax dollars. They have been discredited and are ridiculed.

The goal of this protest is to raise awareness so as to lead to the immediate termination of the reckless publication of Armenian Holocaust denial by major U.S. newspapers—the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune (owner of the L.A. Times), and the Philadelphia Inquirer—and to increase their awareness of the irrefutably genocidal nature of Turkey’s state’s policies (1893 to 1923, but especially 1915) which removed 5 million Christians from Asia Minor (“Turkey”) resulting in today’s unrepentant and 99.9% Muslim Turkish Republic. This is often called the “Forgotten Holocaust.” (See the petition by 128 of the best and brightest Holocaust Scholars at www.zoryan.org under “genocide documents”)

A simple apology or a published correction by the Tribune, the LA Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer is the kind request of the physical protest.

Telephone and e-mail appeals to these three have thus far fallen largely on deaf ears, although a gentleman from the L.A. Times (Barry Swick) and an editor from the Inquirer did lend their ears and promised to speak with their colleagues. That is just not enough.

In addition, I checked out the "126 HOLOCAUST SCHOLARS AFFIRM THE INCONTESTABLE FACT OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND URGE WESTERN DEMOCRACIES TO OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZE IT" page of the Zoryan site, mentioned above.

These people "signed a statement affirming that the World War I Armenian Genocide is an incontestable historical fact."

Okay, Armenians. You can close up your thousands of web sites, and rest easy. The Genocide is now a proven fact. Why, if these scholars signed such a statement, that should settle the matter. (I mean, now the issue is "incontestable." That's what it says.) No doubt every single one of them considered the weighty evidence from both sides, in an objective and unprejudiced manner.

In addition, they have helpfully "asked the Western Democracies to urge the Government and Parliament of Turkey  to finally come to terms with a dark chapter of Ottoman-Turkish history and to recognize the Armenian Genocide. This would provide an invaluable impetus to the process of the democratization of Turkey."

Oh, thank God! Once Turkey recognizes the "Genocide," the nation can finally complete its process of "democratization." Luckily, we have these scholars to tell Turkey whether she is a democracy, or not.

Further:

"Below is a partial list of the signatories:"

 
Prof. Yehuda Bauer

Prof. Israel Charny

Prof. Ward Churchill

Prof. Stephen Feinstein

Prof. Saul Friedman

Prof. Edward Gaffney

Prof. Zev Garber

Prof. Dorota Glowacka

Dr. Irving Greenberg

Prof. Herbert Hirsch

Prof. Irving L. Horowitz,

Dr. Steven Jacobs, Rabbi

Prof. Steven Katz

Prof. Richard Libowitz

Dr. Marcia Littell

Franklin H. Littell

Prof. Hubert G. Locke

Dr. Elizabeth Maxwell

Prof. Erik Markusen

Prof. Saul Mendlowitz

Prof. Jack Needle

Dr. Philip Rosen

Prof. Alan S. Rosenbaum

Prof. Richard Rubinstein

William L. Shulman

Prof. Samuel Totten

Prof. Elie Wiesel

Andrew W. Mellon

Let's see now.... that's around twenty eight names; there are supposed to be 126. What happened to the rest of the shy-of-a-hundred?

Could it be most of the rest had "ian" in their last names? Oh, I get it.  By singling out only the non-Armenian scholars, the Zoryan people want to make the list appear to have more "legitimacy."

Elie Wiesel, from "Armenia-- Survival of a Nation," the pro-Armenian PBS show.

Once Elie Wiesel, "who was the keynote speaker at the (March 3-7, 2000) conference," lends his name to something like this, his reputation no doubt acts like a magnet to pull in the rest. Look at this list... so many Jewish ("If it's good enough for Elie, it's good enough for me") professors. I wonder how many of them actually checked out the truckloads of Western documentation that would have no reason to be falsely friendly to the Turks... since Westerners just aren't taught to be supportive of Turks. (And that's an understatement.) So much evidence, that even if these biased scholars don't become totally convinced that their deeply-perceived outlook on the matter has been just plain wrong, at least doubt should form in the mind of the reasonable among them... as to whether the "Genocide" is truly "incontestable."

Even when one is a professor, it becomes too easy to accept the prevailing point-of-view. What a pity. I can understand these Jews want to express their solidarity and show their sensitivity to what they believe are fellow genocide sufferers (conveniently and hypocritically ignoring the other party in this specific equation, who were truly targeted for systematic extermination)... but they haven't checked out the facts, and they are ironically doing a great disservice to the Jewish people, by cheapening the Holocaust.

It's also a shame that these Jews are unwittingly joining in the slandering/libeling of one of the very few, genuine friends of the Jewish people, the Turks (who have had a history of protecting the Jews, since rescuing nearly all of those persecuted in the Spanish and Portugese Inquisitions) thus aiding in the continuing murder of the Turks' reputation, by committing Rufmord.

I wonder how many of these ignorant Jewish scholars are aware of the misdeeds of the Armenian Nazi "Jew Hunter," General Dro... and the way in which the cowardly general learned his trade in killing defenseless Jews during W.W.II, by targeting -- literally -- Turkish children for massacres in W.W.I. That seems to have been the idea all around... "Murad," a former Ottoman parliamentarian who led Armenian guerilla forces, was not a believer in handing out lollipops to Turkish children. Unless the "pops" came out of the end of a gun.

During W.W.I, the Jews weren't safe from the Armenians, either... since the Armenians felt it should have been the duty of the Jews to support their revolution. (The Jews, grateful for the Ottoman empire for allowing them to prosper and live in security for centuries, were rightly loyal to their nation, until the end.) As a result, Armenians massacred hundreds of Jews around the Hakkari region... along with thousands of Greeks in the Trabzon area, for the same ridiculous "If you're not with us, you're against us" reason.

Even "The Chosen" are entitled to be mistaken... however, there are other Jews who happen to be more studied on the subject, such as the ones who have expressed these opinions.