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"Genocide Scholars" such as Israel Charny
claim Turkey conducted a genocide under the regulations of the 1948 U.N.
Convention on Genocide. (For example, as Charny wrote in a 2005 open letter to
Turkish leader Erdogan.) Since Charny is a "genocide scholar," one
would think he would at least be an expert on what the 1948 Convention says,
since Charny in particular has shown little evidence of being a scholar in
most everything else. (See "Revealing the true identity of the sham
'genocide expert' Dr. Israel Charny," evidently written by a fellow
Israeli, at the bottom of this
page.)
Let's examine more closely the requirements of the U.N.
Convention.
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Armenian
Diaspora's Accusing Turkey Of Genocide Is A Legal Crime |
ANKARA - ''Armenian diaspora's accusing Turkey of genocide is a legal crime,'' Sukru
Elekdag, MP of the main opposition party --Republican People's Party (CHP)-- said on
Thursday.
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Sukru
Elekdag |
Speaking at an international symposium held at Ankara's Gazi
University on ''Turkish-Armenian Relations and 1915 Incidents'', Elekdag said, ''those
who advocate Armenian thesis, cannot prove their allegations within the context of the
United Nations Conventions on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The Article 4 of the Convention says that only persons and public officials can be
accused of genocide, not juristic persons or states. Also, Article 6 of the same
convention says that those allegations should be determined by competent tribunals.''
''Parliaments of several countries decided to recognize so-called Armenian genocide by
violating the United Nations Convention. A decision made by violating international
laws does not have any legal ground. The law does not define the 1915 incidents as
crime of genocide. Therefore, an undefined act cannot be considered crime. This is
the principle of 'there is no crime without law'. Under all these principles, it is
impossible to describe the 1915 incidents as genocide, and to accuse the Ottoman Empire
and Turkey of genocide. Those allegations have both political and legal dimensions.
Therefore, a court of arbitration should be formed to deal with the issue,'' he said.
(Source misplaced)
A competent tribunal was set
in motion, to find individual Ottomans guilty of massacres. This was the Malta Tribunal. It never went to trial,
because for over two years, its administrators could not find evidence for conviction. The
archives of several nations were searched, including the archives of the United States,
and certainly the archives of the Ottoman Empire, which was under the control of the
British occupying Istanbul. Every accused was set free at the end.
"Nullum Crimen"
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Along with the the principle of 'there is no crime without law,' as stated
above, is the principle of Nullum Crimen.
The principle called "Nullum
crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali" is a basic maxim in
continental European legal thinking, and recognized in virtually all modern
democracies. It was authored by Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach as part of
the Bavarian Code in 1813. This maxim states that there can be no crime
committed, and no punishment meted out, without a violation of penal law as it
existed at the time. This basic legal principle has been incorporated into
international criminal law. It thus prohibits the creation of ex post facto laws.
What this
basically means is that penal law cannot be enacted retroactively, for an offense
not existing when that offense was committed ("nullum crimen"); that is,
one cannot be penalized for doing something that isn't prohibited by law.
Apart
from it, the alleged acts against Armenians in 1915 do not constitute the crime of
genocide because International law did not prescribe it as the crime of genocide
in 1915. Moreover, if we apply logic to generality then, “the killing of Jesus
on (the) cross constitutes the crime (of) torture under the European Convention on
Human Rights”. How (is it) consistent with ... common sense? How can you apply
the present concepts retroactively? How could any reasonable person argue that
(the) British Empire’s occupation of Egypt in (the) 1800(s) constitutes the
crime of aggression? Was that act considered aggression at that time?
Nurlan, http://genocide.com/
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More 1948 U.N. Convention Requirements |
Other requirements:
"INTENT" must be proven. That's the magic word. The only
evidence put forth implicating the Ottoman government of the INTENT of systematically
destroying the Armenians has been the Aram Andonian documents.
These have been proven to be forgeries.
LISTEN
TO PROF. GUENTER LEWY on this point, as he elaborates in a Feb. 2006 discussion at the University of Utah.
"There is no crime without evidence. A genocide cannot be written about in the
absence of factual proof."
Henry R. Huttenbach, history professor
who appears to support the Armenian viewpoint exclusively, as do... curiously...
nearly all so-called "genocide scholars"; The Genocide Forum, 1996, No. 9
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"POLITICAL ALLIANCES" are exempted. The Armenians allied themselves with the
enemies of their Ottoman nation. "I must emphasize the fact, unhappily known to few,
that ever since the beginning of the war
the Armenians fought by the side of the Allies on all fronts." (Boghos Nubar)
This BBC article ("Analysis: Defining genocide," Feb. 1, 2005)
outlines a list of criticisms directed at the 1948 Convention, enabling it to be "too
narrow." One is the following: "The convention excludes targeted political
and social groups."
(Later in the article, of course, the Armenian episode is referred
to as an example of genocide "some" would agree with "under the 1948 UN
convention." Based on the above criteria alone, the convention would not apply. Yet,
the writer of the article typically parrots Armenian propaganda-speak, by stating: "an
accusation that the Turks deny." As if only Turks are capable of understanding
these rules, and serve as the sole "deniers." The misinformation and bias
representing "Armenian genocide"-Western coverage can be astounding.)
The U.N. Itself has
Refused to Designate this Episode as a Genocide
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Propagandist-Activists like Harut Sassounian, publisher of the California Courier,
are still going around claiming the United Nations has recognized their genocide.
This is a falsehood.
In 1985, a pro-Armenian rapporteur who
was part of a U.N. sub-committee, Benjamin Whitaker, attempted to force this issue
down the U.N.'s throat. (Sassounian was one of the activists involved.) The issue
was debated, and Whitaker's report was refused. The details may be read in this
article, "The Truth About the
Whitaker Report." Genocide websites such as preventgenocide.org,
unethically or ignorantly, have put up this report, bearing the opinion of its
author, as if the Armenian Genocide were officially accepted by the United Nations.
Here is the truth, established after
1985:
"(The)
United Nations has not approved or endorsed a
report labeling the Armenian experience as Genocide."
Farhan Haq, U.N. spokesman, October 5th, 2000. According to an October 31,
2005 press release from ATAA, Mr. Haq stated the above as a direct response to the
Armenian American lobby, misrepresenting to Congress that the UN had accepted the
Armenians' genocide, citing the Whitaker Report.
On June 4-7, 2005, at a Florida Atlantic University genocide conference, Juan
Mendez, Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide to the Secretary General
of the United Nations, was criticized for calling the Armenians' genocide an
"event." This article tells us that the Argentinian "responded that since
the UN has not officially recognized the genocide, he was not allowed to call
it that."
As reader Conan
put it: "The UN is the organ that has established the Genocide
Convention. If even such an institution doesn’t recognize the Armenian
genocide, Turkey has the right to punish the so called Armenian genocide as
libel. That is the right of every nation."
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(By the way, it appears the Swedish Parliament passed their
Armenian Genocide Resolution on the basis that the United Nations had recognized
this tale as a genocide. After the Swedes discovered their belief to be false,
they still let their resolution stand. What would King Charles XII have said about this lack of Swedish honor?)
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A Genocide Conference Deals with INTERNATIONAL LAW |
The following is from a program of a genocide conference, the details for which
weren't handy. Nevertheless, there were some interesting ideas. See what you think.
(The emphases are mine.)
Session Five: Implications for
International Relations [Saturday 9-10:30]
P. Terrence Hopmann (Brown University): Chair
Gerard J. Libaridian: "An Assessment of Armenian-Turkish Relations"
Xxx: "The Turkish Position"
Xxx: Discussant
GENOCIDES, WAR CRIMES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW:
International Law appears to be undergoing significant readjustments, through a
process of trials and errors and in response to the dynamic changes taking place in
the international world and economic order. Many of the changes point to a
compromise of the hitherto theoretically absolute sovereignty of the
"nation-state". New concepts of international sanctions are emerging, and
efforts are made to build or strengthen international courts and fact gathering
independent organizations.
The diplomatic struggle that takes around the Armenian "Genocide" has
important bearings on the search for new international legal concepts and for a
revised and more autonomous international legal system:
The concept of "Genocide" as a crime entered the international law in
1951, by an act of the United Nations General Assembly. It was not until 1993 that
the United Nations was able to establish the War Crimes Tribunal to investigate and
prosecute people involved in crimes against humanity, including genocide. From a
purely legal point of view, is it possible to "try" a case that occurred
in 1915-16 on the basis of a "law" established in 1951 and in a court
established in 1993, or in any "court" or legislative organ for that
matter.
There would be sufficient evidence to make criminal charges against the Unionist
Ottoman government of the Great War years on the basis of international conventions
of which it was a signatory, namely the conventions about the obligation to protect
civilian lives in war times. Perhaps we can make similar charges against the
revolutionary Ankara government for the offenses against civilian Armenians living
under its jurisdiction in 1919-23. However, can we charge a government for the
crimes committed by the one it succeeded not in any peaceful way but because of a
radical defiance of and rebellion against its authority? What are the criteria
to determine the continuity of responsibility from one regime to the next in a given
territory? One would presume, from a purely legal point of view, that one has to
look at the international treaties that recognized the establishment of a new regime
for answers to the question of the continuity of responsibility. If so, there would
be little ground to make a case against the Republic of Turkey for what happened in
1915-16 or 1895-1918.
Let us presume that we can think of other legal criteria to link the Republic of
Turkey to the Ottoman State concerning the flagrant offenses against peaceful and
civilian Armenians. Will we (and can we) then apply the same criteria uniformly
to all the other cases of flagrant offense against civilian and peaceful people that
occurred in the same era, as one would expect in legal matters? Would not the
list of such crimes committed by extinct or extant governments be a very long one,
even if we limited ourselves to the modern era alone, as suggested above?
Perhaps we should focus our energies to the development and strengthening of
international legal principles and institutions that would help prevent the
recurrence of genocides and similar offenses against humanity. In that case, past
incidents should still provide us with the necessary insight as well as the
necessary moral resolve to develop legal principles and institutions that would be
effective in preventing similar atrocities in the future.
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