moved:
That this House recognize the Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemn this act as a crime against humanity.
Mr. Speaker, over the next hour we will debate the following motion:
That this House recognize the Armenian genocide of 1915 and condemn this act as a crime against humanity.
As members must surely be aware, a large and vibrant Armenian community has been established for decades in Quebec and Canada. Most of its members have parents or grand-parents who survived their people's genocide, which occurred at the time of the fall of the Ottoman empire, between 1915 and 1920. Over one million Armenians were killed because of their ethnic origin. Yet Canada has never recognized that genocide. It prefers to refer to it as a tragedy. Why is the Canadian government so overcautious?
We can only speculate. Maybe the Armenian diaspora living in Canada is not large enough Yet there are over 100,000 Armenians living in Canada, with 60,000 of them established in Montreal and Laval, and the rest of them living in the Toronto area.
The word genocide, which is central to this motion, was used for the first time by the Polish jurist, Raphael Lamkin, in 1943. Here is how he defined the word:
By “genocide” we mean the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group...In general, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation. It means, rather, a co-ordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, unanimously adopted in 1948 by the United Nations general assembly and ratified by Turkey, defines the legal rules. Thus, the UN definition of genocide reads as follows:
Deliberately inflicting on a national, ethnical, racial or religious group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
On August 29, 1985, the Armenian genocide was recognized by the United Nations Sub-Committee on Human Rights.
But the federal governement's position remains an exercise in rhetoric. Since 1993, it has referred to tragic events instead of genocide. It would be unfortunate if this government refused to officially recognize the Armenian genocide because of significant economic interests in Turkey, such as the sale of Candu reactors.
Since the Liberals came to power in 1993, the members of the House have addressed the issue of the recognition of the Armenian genocide on a number of occasions. It is increasingly obvious that the people of Quebec and Canada recognize this chapter of our common history, and it is important that the House assume its moral and civil responsibility by recognizing it also.
Since 1993, six petitions coming from different areas of Canada and Quebec and asking for the recognition of the genocide were presented. These petitions show that, as citizens of Quebec, of Canada and of the world, we are all concerned about the Armenian genocide.
Many motions, introduced by hon. members, have drawn the attention of the House to this issue. On April 23, 1996, the hon. member for Ahuntsic moved, during a Bloc Quebecois opposition day, that the House recognize, on the occasion of the 81st anniversary of the Armenian genocide that took place on April 24, 1915, the week of April 20 to 27 of each year as the week to commemorate man's inhumanity to man.
Unfortunately, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre amended the motion by changing the word genocide for the word tragedy. The motion as amended was adopted, which clearly demonstrates the Liberals' inability to recognize reality.
Since then, parliamentarians on both sides of the House presented motions on the genocide. All of them were not deemed votable. But this in no way alters the gut feeling we have that we must continue to demand that the Armenian genocide be recognized as such, in the interests of the Armenian people and of our duty to recognize and respect the truth.
Did the Armenian genocide really happen? Although some people deny it, internationally recognized historians whose reputation is well established have confirmed that the events that occurred between 1915 and 1920 do in fact constitute a genocide.
Approximately two million Armenians lived in Anatolia, near the Russian border, and many were scattered all over the Ottoman Empire. After war was declared in 1914, Armenian units fought next to the Russians in the Caucasus, which constituted a threat for the Turks.
Armenians were considered as enemies within by the authorities, following the intercommunity conflicts of April 20, 1915.
Armed agression by the Turks against the Armenians caused 18 deaths among the Turks. The uprising gave them the perfect excuse for the night raids, pillage and mass murders that happened five days later on the western border.
On April 25, at dusk, they set out to arrest hundreds of Armenian journalists, artists, intellectuals, lawyers, professionals, business people and clerics who were taken away and shot. During the two following years, close to one million innocent defenseless Armenians were killed or died from cold or sickness, in camps or in the Syrian desert where they had been deported. That represented half of the entire pre-1914 population.
The chief of police of Constantinople, Bedri Bey, had planned the operation for the night of April 24 to 25. His objective was clear: to get rid of the Armenian elite. That night and the following days, 600 persons were thrown in prison and were unable to alert the international community about the massacre that was taking place.
The internationally acclaimed British historian Arnold Toynbee says that about two out of three Armenians living in the Ottoman empire were killed or died during deportation. The official Ottoman census showed that, in 1914, 1,295,000 Armenians lived in the Ottoman Republic and, in 1919, the Turkish minister of the interior himself admitted that the number of deaths was 800,000. Nowadays, Toynbee's figure is the one we recognize.
The Armenian genocide actually took place. It was deliberately orchestrated and planned by a government that, by way of a legislation dated May 27, 1915, authorized the deportation of Armenians, thereby endorsing, insidiously however, the massacre of more than one million people. This deportation was a legal cover, and the death orders were given secretly.
The final destination of the deportees' long journey being the Deir ez-Zor desert in Syria, not the green banks of the Euphrates, how is it possible not to recognize that the specific goal of this deportation, moreover under these climatic conditions, was the final solution, that is, death?
Apparently, on August 22, 1939, when announcing to the military leaders meeting in Obersalzberg that he was about to invade Poland, Adolph Hitler stated that after all, nobody remembered the extermination of the Armenians. This statement of the dictator shows that things that go unsaid, even the most horrendous, do not exist.
Is it really surprising, then, to see, 20 years later, that some members of the German mission in Constantinople, after having advised the Turkish authorities on the deportation of the Armenians in 1915, applied the final solution to the Jews?
Ever since genocide was recognized as a crime against humanity, some fear that the term “genocide” may have become misused and abused to describe crimes that do not tally with the definition. But what is the real situation? Most experts on the crimes against humanity agree that in the 20th century, there have been three or even four genocides.
The first one was of course the Armenian genocide. The second one was the Holocaust. The third happened in Rwanda, where it is estimated that 800,000 moderate Tutsis and Hutus were killed in 1994. And the last is in reference to the events in Bosnia, where the pattern of massacres was likened to a genocide without being officially recognized as such.
Each case, as specified in the definition of genocide, involves the notion of “deliberately inflicting on a national, ethnic, racial or religious group conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, in whole or in part”.
Since its inception, the Bloc Quebecois has always officially recognized the Armenian genocide and promoted its recognition in the House of Commons. The Quebec national assembly and the Ontario legislature also recognized and condemned it a long time ago.
Canada is lagging behind in this issue. Many states do recognize the Armenian genocide. In the United States, the states of New York, Massachusetts, Delaware and California have recognized it.
Many other democratic jurisdictions, including Lebanon, Greece, Russia, Bulgaria, Belgian and Cyprus, took a stand on this matter. They all recognized the Armenian genocide.
It is the same for New South Wales in Australia, Italy, Uruguay, Argentina and Sweden. Interestingly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European parliament both recognized the Armenian genocide. Just over a year ago, on January 18, 2001, the French national assembly did the same. It is our duty, as parliamentarians, to show political and social courage.
Besides the political recognition by these states and international organizations, I have to mention the following statement, which Pope John Paul II made on November 27, 2000. The message is pretty clear. Among other things, he said:
The extermination of a million and a half Armenians, generally considered genocide, and the annihilation of thousands more under a totalitarian regime are tragedies which must still live on in the memories of the present generation.
On June 10, 1999, the member for Halton, in a statement to the House on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, set out our government's position on this genocide. He said:
We remember the calamity afflicted on the Armenian people in 1915. This tragedy was committed with the intent to destroy a national group in which hundreds of thousands of Armenians were subject to atrocities which included massive deportations and massacres.
Of course, a genocide is a tragedy, but so is an earthquake, the September 11 attack or a famine. The definition given in that statement by the hon. member for Halton fully reflects that of a genocide according to the UN definition, but it avoids the ignominious word.
Here is further proof that this government is sitting on the fence by choosing meaningless words to avoid the reality, while making believe that it is sympathetic to this cause. Here is an excerpt from a letter the Armenian community received from the Prime Minister on April 24, 2001.
I am honoured to extend my sincere greetings to all those participating in the activities commemorating the 86th anniversary of the calamity suffered by the Armenian community... Let us thus be reminded how important it is to work together to eliminate intolerance and fanaticism wherever it appears.
“Calamity”, “tragedy”, the government certainly had time, over a period of 87 years, to consult a dictionary of synonyms to use an emphatic term to replace the only word that truly reflects the reality: “genocide”. The true calamity is the attitude of a government that chooses to erase from history the first genocide of the 20th century.
While it is important to work together to eliminate intolerance, as wished by the Prime Minister, I would suggest to him that his government should avoid using meaningless terms, so as to give back their full dignity to the descendants of these victims.
Denying the word will not erase the memory of a people marked in its very identity. Denying the genocide strengthens among Armenians the feeling of injustice to their ancestors. It kills the hope of recognition by others and, more importantly, it gives support to the idea that the genocide is just a myth. Is this how the Prime Minister thinks he is working to “eliminate intolerance and fanaticism wherever it appears”? Or is he himself, with this double language, taking part in the cleansing of History? Will Canada continue to condone this war crime for a long time?
In light of this government's lack of action, how not to believe that diplomatic representations based on economic considerations could have a bearing? How can one explain the fact that many European countries had the courage to take such action?
It is interesting to see that there is a surprising trend in the statistics on trade between Turkey and those countries which have recognized the genocide. For most of the countries like Belgium, France, Russia, Argentina and even Greece, bilateral trade has increased since they have recognized the genocide. For example, Greece recognized it in 1996 and, in 1997, the value of its bilateral trade almost doubled.
Turkey and Canada enjoy friendly relations, which would certainly not be jeopardized if Canada were to recognize the reality of Armenian history. Today's Turkey is not the former Ottoman empire.
The genocide was perpetrated by the Ottoman empire, before the republic came into being. It is impossible to hold the current regimes responsible for that, unless the Turkish state itself admits its own responsibility.
Silence is a crime that trivializes the collective memory. To escape this unfortunate facility, which would take the focus away from the historical events, the Armenians in Canada and Quebec commemorate April 24. We owe it to them to acknowledge their history, since it is also our own.