Continue of Exclusive interview with Samuel A. Weems...
TDN: Obviously the policies of the Armenian Government and actions of
terrorist groups do not represent all Armenians. Are there large numbers
of Armenians who are willing to put these controversial issues aside in order to
end hostilities? Won't an attitude of aggression undermine Armenia's
advancement as a successful democracy and fail to create good leaders?
WEEMS: The United States is the most open and free nation in the
world. I know of no Armenian American who speaks out in opposition to
Armenian terrorism. Of course there is a few percentage of Armenian
Americans, especially the old generation, who do not approve of the escalating
hostility toward Turkey. However, they do keep silent. History records
that when the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation was organized, one of its Manifesto
statements was to use terror against its own people who didn't toe the
party line. I suspect this attitude continues today. And like I
mentioned
above, there are Armenians who do want peace and stability in their
country, and do not want to fight with and terrorize Muslims.
Sadly to say that Armenia has never been a democracy, but a dictatorship. Their
so-called election recently is a complete fraud, just like the one in
1918. Look at the Armenian voter lists--Great increases in numbers while a
million citizens fled the state! Armenia must rid itself of corrupt state
and church leaders before there can be a start for real reforms.
TDN: The EU parliament, France, Italy and other countries have passed
legislation accusing Turks of genocide. Can you please comment on the
worldwide effort and campaign to have pro-Armenian genocide legislation passed
in the parliaments of various countries?
WEEMS: This is nothing more than playing the same old "Christian
versus Muslim" ethnic/race/religion cards by Armenia. The motive
behind these meaningless resolutions is to put pressure on Turkey to give
Armenia billions of dollars and lots of Turkish lands. When one thinks
about it, reads the
historical accounts, he or she will find out for themselves that there was
no such genocide. My question is why should any nation on earth involve
itself in this matter at all, since these allegations of a so-called genocide
took place 87 years ago? The real answer to why some European countries passed
meaningless resolutions of Armenian support is nothing more than the age old
"Christian vs. Muslim" issue, and such things have no place in today's
modern world which seeks peace and understanding of each others' different
faiths. I must note that history reflects that France and Italy were two
of the countries seeking national advantages for themselves during World War I
at the Turks' expense. I see that they are still playing the
self-advantage game! No right thinking government, based on the conclusive
evidence, can say with absolute certainty, as some European countries have done,
that there was a genocide.
TDN: The international community adopted the term "genocide" in
1948. How have these elected officials legally defined genocide and
applied it to the events around 1915, which Turks say were the result of war and
deportation, in part triggered by uprisings of armed Armenians who allied with
the enemies of the Ottoman Empire.
WEEMS: The truth is defined in the question! The "United
Nations Convention for Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide"
made a finding of the Jewish genocide on December 9, 1948. First of all
the definition itself clearly proves that there was no "Armenian
genocide!" The legal definition of genocide is this: "The
systematic killing, or a program of action intended to destroy, a whole national
or ethnic group." The United Nations gives a very detailed definition
of genocide. The true facts are, when the Ottoman government relocated the
disloyal Armenians because they were using terrorist activities to help the
invading Russians, there was no intention to destroy, in whole or in part the
Armenians, and relocation cannot be considered as a genocide as the Armenians
attempt to get the world to
believe today.
The undisputed facts are that only Armenians in eastern Anatolia were
removed. They were removed because they had joined with the Russians in
trying to overthrow the Ottoman government. The absolute truth is that at
least one million Armenians who lived in other regions of the Ottoman
Empire were neither removed nor were they harmed in any way.
It is undisputed that the Armenians in eastern Anatolia were disloyal to
the Ottoman government and were using armed force to try to overthrow it,
by taking advantage of their churches' immunities, and we all know that the
Ottomans never interrupted their freedom of religion. The Ottoman
government leaders even asked the head of the Armenian Church to help them stop
the Armenian rebellion, or they would be forced to remove the
Armenians from behind their army. The Armenian head priest refused this
request for help and the Ottomans thereafter removed the Armenians. The
Armenians in eastern Anatolia paid a terrible price because their church
refused to help them when they could have done so. This church refusal is
a major factor in causing the terrible removal of the eastern Anatolia
Armenians.
Compare what the Ottoman government did to what my own United States
government did at the start of World War II. Japan had made a sneak,
surprise, cowardly, and unprovoked attack on U.S. naval forces at Pearl
Harbor. The U.S. government, on short notice with great personal loss,
removed every Japanese American from the West Coast of the United States
and moved them inland. These Japanese Americans were placed in military
guarded camps until the end of the war. This was done to protect the
American national interests during a war. Just think, there was no
evidence that Japanese Americans were disloyal to the United States.
Compare this fact to the Armenians and there is no question but that they were
not only disloyal, they were also engaged in an armed rebellion.
It is "silly" to claim that the Turks massacred 1.5 million
Armenians!
True facts are clear by both American and British eyewitnesses: there was no
massacre nor was there a genocide. In my research I discovered that even
the Armenian chief historian uses two sets of books. What I mean by that
is the Armenians use the same numbers to count in one of their revisions of
history a massacre. Then, in another revision of history, they use the
same numbers to count refugees! I choose to believe the American and
British eyewitnesses' accounts and the set of books the Armenians use to
count refugees. Therefore there could not have been a massacre as they
claim!
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