277) An Analysis of "Genocide"

   
 
  Professor Justin McCarthy was asked by the Turkish Forum to provide an analysis of the statement of The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), when that body was asked to intervene during the talks of The Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Committee.
 
 Other analyses of genocide principles follow.
 
 
   
 The most dangerous problem is that, once the word genocide is used, people do not think of the UN definition. They think of what Hitler did to the Jews. 
 
 
 
 It must first be understood that the ICTJ statement that the word
 "genocide" can be applied to what happened to the Armenians is true. They applied the UN Genocide Convention definitions to the history of one group, the Armenians, during World War I. Note what ICTJ states as defining the so-called genocide:
 
 i) The perpetrator killed one or more persons.
 
 ii) Such person or persons belonged to a particular national, ethnical, racial, or religious group
 
 iii) The conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of
 similar conduct directed against that group.
 
 All of those statements were true of the so-called "Armenian Genocide." There were indeed many Muslims of Eastern Anatolia who killed Armenians. That fulfills the definition. Indeed, the definition is fulfilled whenever two "national, ethnical, racial, or religious groups" fight each other.
 
 The basic problem is that the UN definition of genocide is essentially meaningless. It can be applied to almost any conflict. The most dangerous problem is that, once the word genocide is used, people do not think of the UN definition. They think of what Hitler did to the Jews. Those who read that the ICTJ has decided that the Turks committed genocide will seldom read the quasi-legal document produced by the ICTJ. Often they will not even know there is a UN Genocide Convention. Instead, their prejudices will be reinforced. Their knowledge will not be increased. They will blame
 the Turks without knowing anything of the real history of the events.
 
 By the UN definition there indeed was a genocide of the Armenians. There also was a genocide of the Muslims and a genocide of the Turks. When the Armenian Nationalists killed the Muslims of Van, was that not genocide? When they rounded up the villagers around Van, herded them into the great natural bowl in Zeve, then killed them, was that not genocide? Was the Armenian murder of the innocent and unarmed Muslims of Erzurum,
 Erzincan, Tercan, and so many other places not genocide?
 
 
   ...The authors completely adopted the Armenian Nationalists' view of history.
 
 
 
 Beyond the fact that the UN definition is meaningless there are some extremely troubling facets to the ICTJ analysis: They state, "This memorandum is a legal, not a factual or historical analysis." How, one might ask, can anyone make a decision on the events of World War I without an historical analysis? Of course, ICTJ does make an historical analysis. Indeed, they also make a "factual analysis," using a very selected group of facts. While a number of what may be called the standard works of the Armenian Cause are cited, only one brief book published by Turkish Government and some Government web sites are cited (thus reinforcing the erroneous view that only the Turkish Government objects to the Armenian version of history.) Reading the text, it is obvious that the authors completely adopted the Armenian Nationalists' view of history. They do not seem to have attempted to consider the other side. Had they done so, they would have seen that applying the word "genocide" only to the Turks was anything but a neutral statement of fact.
 
 If one only utilizes the fabrications in sources such as the Bryce
 Report or the missionary reports, then "genocide" is a foregone conclusion. Those books contain few dead Turks. The only suffering mentioned is Armenian suffering. Using only such sources results in a complete distortion of history. World War I propaganda becomes modern propaganda, dressed in a
 legalistic package.
 
 I have no idea of the process used in naming the ICTJ to make this decision. Nor do I know how the ICTJ went about making their decision. Perhaps their good will was wrongly assumed. More likely, they simply did not know what they were doing. They may have believed they were making a simple legal statement that needed little historical analysis. That is a sure path to error, because those who believe they do not need to study history all too often accept what they have always been told without examining the facts, exactly what happened here.
 
 I have supported and still support the concept of a Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission. Anything that brings contending sides together to discuss their differences is good. But the TARC made a false step in asking the ICTJ for their opinion. I have never agreed with the idea of submitting historical questions to lawyers for final answers. What is needed is a commission of historians, not a commission of lawyers.
 
 --Justin McCarthy
 
 
 Food for Thought: "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 proscribe 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 Rightsâ€�. How it is consistent with the 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/