SYDNEY: The Hon. David Shoebridge MLC of the NSW Greens lent his support to Armenian Genocide recognition and Nagorno Karabakh self-determination in a parliamentary statement delivered on the floor of the NSW Legislative Council this week.
Shoebridge who is co-deputy chair of the NSW Armenia-Australia Parliamentary Friendship Group rose in parliament to describe the events that befell the Armenian people in 1915, and the policies adopted by the Ottoman Turkish government which led to the genocide.
“The events of the genocide began on 23 April 1915 with the deportation of hundreds of Armenian leaders, including politicians, educators and religious leaders from Constantinople,†he said.
“Further deportation of Armenian people followed, with many ending up in so-called ‘relocation centres’, which were predominantly located in the deserts of Syria. Getting to those centres involved forced marches through hostile terrain without water or food. Many died on the way. They were left in the desert sands where they fell.â€
Lending his support to the noble cause for universal recognition of the Armenian Genocide, Shoebridge stated: “It is through recognition that we can heal and make sure that these things do not happen again, which is why I repeat this history today.â€
Shoebridge then described the modern day issues facing the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh after the historic Armenian region was separated from Armenia by Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin. He acknowledged the Nagorno Karabakh people’s right to self-determination.
“In the 1920s Nagorno Karabakh was placed under the rule of Azerbaijan by then dictator Josef Stalin. Wars over this area have resulted in the deaths of at least 30,000 people and the displacement of more than one million people. Nagorno Karabakh is not currently internationally recognised as a state, and it is calling for rights to self-determination based on Article VIII of the Helsinki Final Act. The Greens continue to call for peace and non-violence throughout Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh and to move towards a peaceful settlement for the area.â€
ANC Australia Executive Director Varant Meguerditchian immediately contacted the NSW Greens MP to thank him for placing on public record his support for the issues that remain at the heart of concerns of the Armenian-Australian community of NSW.
“We thank Mr Shoebridge for raising awareness of the Armenian Genocide and for calling for a peaceful resolution to the issues facing the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh.â€
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The full text of the speech delivered by David Shoebridge can be found below:
ADJOURNMENT SPEECH: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND NAGORNO KARABAKH
Mr David Shoebridge 6:50pm Tuesday 23rd August 2011: The Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the twentieth century. In 1944 Raphael Lemkin coined the term "genocide", invoking the Armenian case as a definitive example of genocide. Out of an estimated Armenian population of 2.5 million, it is estimated that 1.5 million people were killed in that genocide. Recently discovered documents from the interior ministry of the Ottoman Empire of the time showed the disappearance of over 970,000 Ottoman Armenians from the official population records between 1915 and 1916. The events of the genocide began on 23 April 1915 with the deportation of hundreds of Armenian leaders, including politicians, educators and religious leaders from Constantinople—that night is known to many as Red Sunday—and most of those notables were eventually killed. Further deportation of Armenian people followed, with many ending up in so-called "relocation centres", which were predominantly located in the deserts of Syria. Getting to those centres involved forced marches through hostile terrain without water or food. Many died on the way. They were left in the desert sands where they fell.
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On 29 May 1915 the ominously named Committee of Union and Progress Central Committee passed the "Temporary Law of Deportation"—also known as the Tehcir Law—giving the Ottoman Government and military authorisation to deport anyone seen as a threat to national security. The United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time, Mr. Henry Morgenthau, wrote:
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When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations; they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race.
As well as effectively sentencing Armenians to death on forced marches through deserts, killings were carried out by mass burnings, drownings, shootings and horrific medical interventions. Eyewitnesses included Eitan Belkind, who infiltrated the Ottoman army and reported the murder of up to 5,000 Armenians at a time. Whole villages were burned and mass burning was used to murder women and children in concentration camps. Eyewitnesses also reported intentional drowning of women and children in the waters of the Black Sea. The use of poison and drug overdoses by doctors against Armenians have been verified by contemporaneous records and accounts, including the killing of children by the intravenous injection of morphine and the use of toxic gas pumped into school buildings to murder larger groups of children. There are also stories of the intentional transmission of certain diseases using contaminated blood.
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On 13 September 1915 the Ottoman Parliament passed expropriation laws stating that all property, including land, livestock, and homes belonging to Armenians, was to be confiscated by the authorities. Tragically the Armenian Genocide succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in much of their historic homeland. This was accompanied by the intentional destruction of Armenian cultural, religious, and communal heritage. Armenian churches and cemeteries were destroyed and the Armenian quarters of some cities demolished entirely. During the operation, reporting and photography were forbidden in a further attempt to obliterate the Armenian people from the gaze of history.
In 1916 Arnold J Toynbee's book The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was published. It gathers together eyewitness and survivor accounts from the genocide. His sources included those from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, who all attest to the systematic massacre of Armenians by the then Ottoman Government forces. The Armenian Genocide is documented extensively in the national archives of Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and the United States among others. Many of those Armenians who were able to flee ended up in countries like Australia and America, with substantial diasporas being created. On 13 April 1920 a report to the Senate of the American Military Mission to Armenia stated:
[m]utilation, violation, torture, and death have left their haunting memories in a hundred beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveller in that region is seldom free from the evidence of this most colossal crime of all the ages.
Recognition of this genocide is important for many Armenians and others. It is through recognition that we can heal and make sure that these things do not happen again, which is why I repeat this history today. On 17 April 1997 the New South Wales Parliament supported a motion formally recognising the Armenian Genocide and designating 24 April as a day of remembrance in New South Wales, and we would do well never to forget it. In recent times the region has been subject to further displacement and violence, notably during the Karabakh War, which ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire in 1994. This war related to Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of some 15,000 square kilometres within the borders of Azerbaijan, with a predominantly Armenian population, situated close to the Iranian border. In the 1920s Nagorno-Karabakh was placed under the rule of Azerbaijan by then dictator Josef Stalin. Wars over this area have resulted in the deaths of at least 30,000 people and the displacement of more than one million people. Nagorno-Karabakh is not currently internationally recognised as a state, and it is calling for rights to self-determination based on Article VIII of the Helsinki Final Act. The Greens continue to call for peace and non-violence throughout Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and to move towards a peaceful settlement for the area. On 23 August 1990 the Armenian republic declared independence from the Soviet Union. On 8 September the official twentieth anniversary celebration will be celebrated in the New South Wales Parliament with the Armenian National Committee of Australia, and we would do well to remember this then.
