99 - all you should know about the Genocide April, 2014 | Page 51

for their acts. Later, some of them received very
important posts in the new Turkish republic and,
more importantly, became part of the gallery of new
heroes that was taking shape. For example, Şükrü
Kaya was the General Secretary of the Republican
People’s Party founded by Kemal, and Minister of
the Interior. He was also one of the primary people
responsible for the deportation of the Armenians
and had declared to German consuls on a number
of occasions, “We have to eliminate the Armenians.”
Mustafa Abdülhalik Renda, Speaker of the Parliament
in the republican period, had immolated thousands
of Armenians in Mush. If the real history were to
be revealed, the founders of the republic would be
exposed as murderers and criminals.
c) The fear of an identity crisis. One of the main
obstacles for a public discussion of the issue is the
loss of the collective memory of modern Turkish
society. When Ataturk set about creating a new
republic, he replaced the real history with a new
official version, where military defeats and bloody
crimes committed against ethnic and religious
minorities were simply erased, and thus removed
from public discussion.
One could say that by eliminating the Armenians,

The Armenian Genocide
is an undeniable fact
and its recognition is
not only the issue of the
Armenian people, but of
the whole world. Besides
establishing peace in the
region, recognition by the
international community
will also lay the foundation
for the resolution of the
Karabakh conflict, taking
the threats by Azerbaijan
into consideration.

the Ottoman leaders were taking revenge on the
European powers for the humiliation they had
been caused and trying to deal with their own
psychological complexes. Not only did the Kemalist

Leandro Despui
Human rights defender, diplomat

leaders deal with that trauma, they rewrote history
and carved out a new national identity. And from
that moment onwards, the Turkish state has
suppressed any initiatives to reveal that “forbidden
history.” The recognition of the Armenian Genocide
would destroy all the foundations on which the
history of the Turkish republic is based.

In this

case, the anti-imperialist war would be seen as a
conflict with the Armenian and Greek minorities.
The National Forces or Kuva-yi Milliye, which are
presented as freedom fighters, would be reduced
to bandits who grew wealthy at the expense of the
victims of the Armenian Genocide. Mustafa Kemal
would not have led a national freedom movement
and established the Republic of Turkey. He would
simply have carried out the Young Turks’ Plan B
and held together parts of the collapsing empire by
annihilating the Armenians and the Greeks.

THE TRIPLE ENTENTE POWERS—FRANCE, GREAT
BRITAIN AND RUSSIAN—CONDEMNED THE
MASS MURDERS OF THE ARMENIANS IN A JOINT
STATEMENT, CALLING THEM A “CRIME AGAINST
HUMANITY”