Month: July 2009

Publisher, The California Courier
Senior Contributor, USA Armenian Life Magazine

In an earlier column I wrote about the special conference held at the British Parliament on May 7, organized by the British-Armenian All-Party Parliamentary Group. Dr. Israel Charny and I were invited as guest speakers. I spoke about “The Armenian Genocide and Quest for Justice.” Dr. Charny could not attend due to illness, however, his prepared remarks were read by Peter Barker, a former broadcaster of BBC Radio.
Dr. Charny is an internationally-known authority on the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. He is the Executive Director of the Jerusalem-based Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, past President of International Association of Genocide Scholars, Editor-in-Chief of Encyclopedia of Genocide, and author of several scholarly books. Dr. Charny’s lengthy paper was titled: “Confronting denials of the Armenian Genocide is not only honoring history, but a crucial policy position for confronting threats in our contemporary world.”
In his remarks presented at the British Parliament, Dr. Charny described the conference on the Armenian Genocide he attended two years ago in Istanbul. He found “the prevailing discourse stilted, blocked and rigid with denials.” The overwhelming majority of the statements were “one-sided rehashes of Turkish denial propaganda; a basic intellectual failure since they did not even mention or refer to or in any way acknowledge any of the voluminous documentation and evidences of the Armenian Genocide that are now part of world culture; and a great number were emotional diatribes rather than ‘scientific’ or properly scholarly contributions.”
In his paper, Charny singled out the presentation at the Istanbul conference of Prof. Yair Auron, his colleague from Israel, who spoke “in a strong resonant voice that there was no question but that the Armenians had suffered genocide at the hands of the Turks.”
In his London remarks, Dr. Charny’s also discussed the “failure of the State of Israel, but not of Israelis, to recognize the Armenian Genocide,” expressing his “deep regret and shame” that Israel (where he lives) and the United States (where he was born), “have failed seriously in their moral responsibility towards the Armenian people.” He felt “particularly wounded as well as angry at such failures by my Jewish people when we too have known the worst horrors of being victims of a major genocide, and therefore we should be all the more at your side as deeply committed allies in all aspects of preserving and honoring the record of the Armenian Genocide.”
Dr. Charny announced “the happy news [that] the battle for recognition and genuine respect for the memory of the Armenian Genocide [was won] on the level of everyday Israeli culture.” In great detail, he explained that “throughout the year there are major statements in our culture about the Armenian Genocide, including many full-length feature stories and interviews in all of our major newspapers and on our television. On April 24, there is powerful coverage, for example, this year on Roim Olam or Seeing the World, a major TV news magazine; there is an annual seminar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem at which this year the keynote speaker was Prof. James Russell of Harvard University, and it was my honor to be the keynoter the year before together with an influential member of the Knesset who was totally knowledgeable about the Genocide and totally clear about Israel’s error in not recognizing it; and there is of course an annual commemoration by the Armenian Community — it was there that the two ministers in the past announced their recognition of the Armenian genocide. During a too-brief period, we also had two ministers of the Israeli government who officially recognized the Genocide, and although the governments in question promptly disavowed these ministers’ statements as private and not speaking for the country, the records of those ministers honoring the Armenian Genocide on behalf of the State of Israel cannot be erased. I would say that both the everyday Israeli man on the street and the professional scholars of the Holocaust, such as Prof. Yehuda Bauer perhaps the ranking scholar of the Holocaust at Yad Vashem, are basically sympathetic and committed to paying homage to the Armenian Genocide. A few years ago four of us, including one of the above former ministers, Yossi Sarid, Prof. Bauer, Prof. Yair Auron, an indefatigable scholar of the Armenian Genocide and of Israel’s denials of same, and myself traveled together to Yerevan to lay a wreath at the Armenian Genocide Memorial.”
As he has done many times in the past, Dr. Charny expressed regret that “sadly and shamefully the pull of practical government politics still leads to official Israel cooperating with Turkey in gross denials of the Armenian Genocide. No less than the arch fighter for peace in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Shimon Peres, now President of Israel, then serving as Israel’s Foreign Minister, twice went notably out of his way to insult the history and memory of the Armenian Genocide.”
In a scathing letter, Dr. Charny told Peres in 2001: “You have gone beyond a moral boundary that no Jew should allow himself to trespass…. As a Jew and an Israeli, I am ashamed of the extent to which you have now entered into the range of actual denial of the Armenian Genocide, comparable to denials of the Holocaust.”
In response to a second “especially insulting” denial by Shimon Peres in 2002, Dr. Charny sent him one of my columns from The California Courier, with the following note: “I am enclosing with great concern for your attention an editorial in a leading US-Armenian newspaper calling on Armenia to expel the Israeli Ambassador. For your further information, the author of this editorial, who is the head of the United Armenian Fund in the US — comparable to our United Jewish Appeal — was for many years a delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.”
Dr. Charny concluded his London remarks: “I am happy to emphasize that the people and the culture [in Israel] very strongly recognize and honor the [Armenian] Genocide, and know how serious and important it is for us and the whole world.” He expressed his sincere hope that “some day we will succeed in changing the official Israeli government position.”

Armenian-Mexican Task Force Announced By Consuls General of Mexico and Armenia

By Appo Jabarian

Executive Publisher / Managing Editor

USA Armenian Life Magazine

Friday,  July 3, 2009

Besides loving Mexico’s culture, people, tacos and tequila, Armenians around the world have one more reason to enhance their appreciation of the Estados Unidos de Mexico: Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan.

Among the many nations that have opened their doors and hearts to the survivors of the Armenian Genocide, Mexico stands out as being a pluralistic sovereign state that has appointed a principled and courageous Armenian-Mexican seasoned diplomat, a respected expert on international affairs and an astute political strategist to its most important?ambassadorial post, the one in the United States.

As Mexico’s top diplomatic representative in Washington, Ambassador Sarukhan leads his country’s efforts on such crucial issues as trade, proliferation of illegal firearms, immigration, curtailing of the traffic of illegal drugs, among others.

Amb. Sarukhan is also credited for fostering good relations between the Armenian-American and Mexican-American communities. His insightful remarks in late 2008 inspired Shahe Mazbanian, a vice-president of business development at Bank of America, to summon help from his long-time friend and mentor Alberto G. Alvarado, Los Angeles District Director of the US Small Business Administration, to jointly lobby with their respective communities for active co-operation. Their efforts paid off in an impressive way. Both the Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Armenian-American Chamber of Commerce jointly organized a June 25 breakfast meeting in Los Angeles’ Biltmore Hotel in honor of Ambassador Sarukhan.

At the meeting, the Consuls General of Mexico and Armenia, Juan Marcos Gutierrez-Gonzalez and Grigor Hovhannissian separately spoke about the necessity of establishing strategic partnership between the Mexican and Armenian communities. As a direct result of this timely initiative, they announced the formation of a task force that would promote cooperation in the sectors of health, economic development, education and culture (Please see related news article by clicking on the following link: ).

The Consulates General of Armenia and Mexico spearheaded the co-operation efforts. In a pre-taped video message, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA.) expressed his appreciation for the initiative and congratulated the two consulates.

In a November 21, 2008 interview granted to The Armenian Reporter, Amb. Sarukhan emphasized that “communities like the Armenian and the Mexican communities are natural allies. They share agendas and challenges in this country. Many of them have come here driven by the same problems of lack of economic opportunities. Both are hard working societies. [In the past] the Armenian community faced the prejudice and racism and discrimination in this country that Mexican communities are facing today.”

He stated that “It would make more sense if Armenian and Mexican communities work together especially in the West Coast and New England where we have the highest concentration of Armenian-Americans to bring down the bombastic nature of the debate, to look at the opportunities and the challenges in an objective and forward-looking way.”

Mr. Sarukhan’s candid position regarding his Armenian roots is not only uplifting for the Armenian Youth, but also enriching for Mexico’s international image. His grandparents arrived in Mexico in the early 1930s. His grandfather was a Russian-Armenian also named Artur Sarukhanian, and grandmother, a survivor of the Genocide arrived in Mexico with the idea of coming to Canada. Having read a lot about Mexico, Sr. Sarukhan decided to stop in Mexico on their way to Canada. The elder Sarukhanians fell in love with Mexico and they stayed in Mexico. Amb. Sarukhan was born in Mexico.

The prestigious website of The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars named after Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States from 1913 to 1921, and a great friend of The Democratic Republic of Armenia (1918-1921), writes: “The grandson of refugees in Mexico, Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan is a career diplomat who joined the Mexican Foreign Service in 1993, and currently serves as Mexico’s Ambassador to the U.S. He was posted to the Mexican Embassy in the United States as a junior diplomat, served as Chief of Staff to the Ambassador, and was the head of the counternarcotics office at the Embassy. In 2000 he became Chief of Policy Planning at the Foreign Ministry and was appointed by the President as Mexican Consul General to New York City in 2003. He resigned from this post and took a leave of absence from the Foreign Service in 2006 to join Felipe Calderón’s presidential campaign as a foreign policy advisor and international spokesperson and became the Coordinator for Foreign Affairs in the Transition Team. In November of 2006 he received the rank of Ambassador and in February of 2007 was appointed Mexican Ambassador to the United States.”

During the breakfast meeting’s question and answer period, Appo Jabarian of USA Armenian Life Magazine asked: “Amb. Sarukhan, at the beginning of your remarks you have used the term ‘1915 Genocide by Turkey.’ Does it mean that the government of Mexico officially recognizes the Armenian Genocide, or have you simply stated the facts as they are?”

Amb. Sarukhan posed for a moment and then answered with a humorous flair. He said that “the newspapers are good at killing flies and diplomats,” causing an eruption of laughter. He then stated courageously that his remarks reflected his personal belief. He went on to elaborate that by telling the truth we can build a better future. He added that the truth can overcome everything; and can liberate even those who want to hide it.

Through their pro-active co-operation, the Armenian- and the Mexican-American communities across the United States, can achieve substantial moral, political, and economic gains. Both communities come from similar backgrounds of family-values.
The success and the longevity of their inter-ethnic alliance should serve as a model that can be emulated by Armenian-Americans in establishing similarly fruitful alliances with other communities.