Armenian Groups Are Increasingly Focused on Reparations for Genocide

25/04/2015 13:24

Armenian Groups Are Increasingly Focused on Reparations for Genocide


Behind the Turkish government’s denials of the century-old Armenian genocide lurks the possibility that survivors and their descendants could be deemed legally entitled someday to financial reparations, perhaps worth tens of billions of dollars or more.

The Turkish authorities take the position that there is nothing that needs to be repaid. Moreover, no judicial mechanism exists in which claims of such magnitude, from events 100 years ago, could be litigated. But Armenian activists have nonetheless increasingly focused on the issue of compensation in recent years.

The activists have pressed smaller-scale lawsuits against Turkish and other defendants, in Turkey and elsewhere.

They have followed precedents set by victims of other atrocities of modern history, most notably Holocaust-era claims against Germany. They have drawn parallels between their struggle for reparations and those of Native Americans and African-Americans. They have commissioned studies to evaluate plundered and seized assets, including land that is now part of Turkey.

Many have also been energized by what they see as an increasing acknowledgment — mainly outside Turkey but also among some Turks — that from 1915 to 1923, in the tumult of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a genocide committed by members of the generation that created the modern Turkish state.

“My parents and grandparents used to say, ‘We’ll never see justice done,’ ” said Nora Hovsepian, an American lawyer of Armenian descent from Encino, Calif., and the chairwoman of the Western Region of the Armenian National Committee of America, an advocacy group for the Armenian diaspora. With more international acceptance that genocide was committed, she said, “I think the tide is turning.”

For human rights historians, the Turkish government’s outrage at recent calls to acknowledge the genocide from Pope Francis, the European Parliament, Germany and Austria is intertwined with the reparations question. Such an acknowledgment by Turkey, such historians say, would not only reverse a century of denials, but would also weaken Turkey’s legal defenses from compensation claims.

Advertisement

“If you deny something, it is not given existence by you,” said Jermaine McCalpin, a scholar of transitional justice at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. “If it’s not given existence, there’s nothing to resolve.”

Mr. McCalpin, who was invited to deliver a speech on Friday at genocide centennial commemorations in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, served on an international panel that completed a large-scale study last month on calculating Armenian reparations.

He said the reparations question was challenging partly because the events happened so long ago. “But that doesn’t mean we should do nothing,” he said in a telephone interview.

“You’re talking about a long historical trend of denial,” Mr. McCalpin said of Turkey. “To admit or recognize a genocide also requires acknowledging a wrong, and that is where reparations come in. You acknowledge, and then you move to repair.”

The study by the panel, the Armenian Genocide Reparations Study Group, was funded in part by Armenian advocacy organizations. It includes recommendations and formulas for determining the components of a possible reparations package, including inflation-adjusted compensation for property, death and suffering, based in part on historical precedents. Depending on the method of calculation, the total could exceed $100 billion.

The chairman of the panel, Henry C. Theriault, a genocide scholar and the chairman of the philosophy department at Worcester State University in Worcester, Mass., said the question of reparations was “obviously a pretty central one.”

He also said an official Turkish acknowledgment of genocide, while not critical for reparation claims, was still important.

“It has symbolic value, for getting the history right,” he said. “The fact that many people in Turkey aren’t willing to use the word, the resistance to using it, doesn’t promote reconciliation.”

Other Armenian groups have said Mr. Theriault’s panel vastly understated what was lost. Armenian Genocide Losses 1915, a website established by researchers in Armenia to estimate damages after the passing of 100 years, uses broader measures for calculating values, which are correspondingly higher than the panel’s.

They include determinations for irreversible harm, such as death and destruction, and reversible harm, such as restoration of damaged churches, sea access, water and land resources, an apology and genocide education. They also include a calculation for “delay damages,” which reflect deprivation of access to ancestral homelands and emotional distress.

Under the website’s formulas, at least nine countries gained indirect benefits from the genocide, including the United States and much of present-day Europe. But Turkey gained more than any other, as “chief beneficiary and main cause of delay in proper redress of the crime.”

The website estimated the total value of reparations at approximately $3 trillion, of which it said Turkey owes about $1.64 trillion.

Many Armenians, of course, say reparations on that scale are highly unlikely, even if Turkey were ever to concede that reconciliation should include financial compensation. But there is no indication Turkish leaders are prepared to discuss that possibility.

While the Turks have said atrocities were committed, they have denied that Armenians, almost all of them Christian, were intentionally and systematically killed because of their identity, part of the definition of genocide.

The Turks have also said that many Turkish Muslims were killed, and have sought to portray all victims of that period as regrettable casualties of conflict. And they have cited agreements made in the aftermath of World War I that were meant to settle claims and Ottoman-era debts.

“To undo these agreements would be unthinkable,” said G. Lincoln McCurdy, president of the Turkish Coalition of America, an advocacy group in Washington.

“We would hope that Turkey and Armenia instead could look forward to reconciliation without the necessity of re-litigating venerable and time-honored agreements,” Mr. McCurdy said in a statement. “And what about the losses of millions of Ottoman Muslims, who were driven out of their ancestral homes in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Russia and suffered during a century of war at the hands of the great powers and their proxies?”

Armenians have managed to win some money in the courts, though not from Turkey. In one well-known case, the New York Life Insurance Company was sued for refusing to pay the life insurance policies of thousands of Armenians who died in the genocide. The case, brought in California where many descendants of genocide victims live, was settled in 2004 for $20 million, plus $3 million for nine Armenian church and charity groups.

Last September, leading Armenian clerics announced they were suing Turkey in that country’s highest court, seeking restitution for church properties destroyed during the genocide, notably the Great House of Cilicia in Sis, near the Turkish city of Adana. If the lawsuit fails, advocates say, an appeal is planned at the European Court of Human Rights.

Ms. Hovsepian said the focus on litigation to redress genocide losses partly reflected a generational shift in the Armenian diaspora, as many of the survivors have died and their children have taken up the cause in a less emotional and more pragmatic way.

“It’s history passed down,” she said. “Of course we still mourn the dead, but it goes beyond that. You can see the evolution. It’s become a time of demands.”


In case you have found a mistake in the text, please send a message to the editor by selecting the mistake and pressing Ctrl-Enter.

Newsfeed

22/04/2024 13:06 Caring for nature, we have started with ourselves - Team Telecom Armenia 18/04/2024 11:27 New streets in Koti equipped with illumination operated via automatic and remote control 11/04/2024 10:30 Byblos Bank Armenia donates AMD 5 million to Health Fund for Children of Armenia 06/04/2024 14:34 Viva-MTS sums up the financial results for 2023 and confirms its leadership in the sector 02/04/2024 12:20 Success story resulting from continued support. From music therapy to the conservatory 29/03/2024 14:41 Ameriabank named the Best Bank in Armenia for 2024 by Global Finance magazine 28/03/2024 14:02 IoT Lab opens at National Polytechnic University of Armenia 26/03/2024 16:58 “START+”: “Kinodaran” without subscription fee, 10 GB internet, 1000 minutes and favorite apps without any limits 25/03/2024 16:14 Change in Viva-MTS company name and General Terms of Provisioning Services 22/03/2024 17:24 Marzes remain in the focus of attention of Viva-MTS: New service center opened in Tchambarak 21/03/2024 14:12 In 2023, the SME Loan Portfolio of Ameriabank Reported More Than 30% Growth 19/03/2024 10:20 Mikael Vardanyan donated 117 mln drams for garbage trucks and 230 waste bins for Masis community 14/03/2024 18:12 New technologies at the core of rural infrastructure development 13/03/2024 16:32 The number of Team mobile subscribers is over 1 million 13/03/2024 13:01 “RED”: fixed and mobile services in one package for customers valuing convenience and quality 11/03/2024 14:51 Global Finance Recognizes Ameriabank's Leadership in Sustainable Finance in Armenia 06/03/2024 14:07 Byblos Bank Armenia named CaseKey title sponsor again 05/03/2024 13:36 Doing Digital Forum Returns Featuring Brett King as Keynote Speaker 01/03/2024 18:42 "The Innovator's Dilemma": Byblos Bank Armenia supports publication of Armenian edition 29/02/2024 16:45 “Personal Assistant” program changes popular mindset in regions 27/02/2024 18:12 Viva-MTS: 30-day internet-package for the many destinations within “VOYAGE” service 22/02/2024 17:53 The kindergarten of Armavir village is already being supplied with solar photovoltaic panels 19/02/2024 16:53 Viva-MTS, a company cultivating reading traditions 19/02/2024 12:48 Ameriabank set to join BOGG, a London Stock Exchange (LSE) listed financial group as a standalone entity 14/02/2024 14:53 Years of hard work and a sustainable approach to infrastructure development in regions 07/02/2024 14:49 Virtual PBX: Smart tool for corporate clients 02/02/2024 18:26 Viva-MTS named one of the ten most attractive employers 26/01/2024 18:15 Ameriabank is the Largest Taxpayer Among Armenian Banks 25/01/2024 17:03 Viva-MTS and “SOURCE” Foundation's “Personal Assistant” program is achieving the desired result in Syunik 24/01/2024 19:14 The shareholder of Viva-MTS has changed: The company will reach new achievements 23/01/2024 12:56 Byblos Bank Armenia to sponsor CaseKey team’s participation in Budapest’s CUBE 2024 22/01/2024 14:27 53% increase in Internet traffic in the Viva-MTS network. New Year's Eve and the first day compared to the same period last year 18/01/2024 18:30 “Viva University”: a long-term investment in youth empowerment 29/12/2023 15:49 Viva-MTS: investments that ensure sustainable development using innovative solutions 28/12/2023 14:46 The Christmas Miracle in Shirak Region - Ameriabank Santas Visited Children from Artsakh 22/12/2023 11:43 12 participants of “Get Started” program will explore the startup ecosystem 20/12/2023 20:38 Byblos Bank Armenia donates New Year gift funds to Soldier's Home 14/12/2023 15:51 Daily solutions for Viva-MTS clients based on artificial intelligence and deep neural networks 13/12/2023 16:24 How Ameriabank continued to deliver success amid the volatility of the global markets 13/12/2023 10:15 Mikael Vardanyan donated the maternity hospital of the Surb Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center the modern medical equipment amounting 116 million drams (Video) 11/12/2023 15:53 Viva-MTS: business for business. Virtual PBX has become an effective management tool for corporate subscribers 09/12/2023 20:46 “We rule out the return of citizens of the Republic of Artsakh to the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan”: Tհe appeal of the political and civil organizations of the Artsakh to the International community 08/12/2023 14:01 «Wi-Fi Calling». call through Wi-Fi network from Armenia or abroad in frames of the tariff plan 30/11/2023 15:25 Changes in the terms of provisioning “M2M Tracker Plus” package of services 28/11/2023 18:34 A new phase of the educational program “Viva University” has started 27/11/2023 10:56 Armen Avetisian, Viva-MTS General Director, had an open-door lecture at YSU 20/11/2023 16:40 Viva-MTS and “SOURCE” foundation will support four families in Syunik through the program “Personal Assistant” 17/11/2023 17:36 Ameriabank Named the Best Bank for Digital Solutions in Armenia for 2023 16/11/2023 19:43 Best offer: Postpaid “UNLIM” – unlimited Internet for only 4500 AMD 15/11/2023 09:19 Byblos Bank Armenia Celebrates Education at CaseKey 2023 Gala 06/11/2023 16:18 30 years on stage: The partnership between Viva-MTS and “Paros” Chamber Choir continues 01/11/2023 17:12 Thinking “green” is a lifestyle․ Viva-MTS and "My Forest Armenia" continue the environmental partnership 01/11/2023 11:47 Red Flag Alert for Genocide - Azerbaijan in Armenia 31/10/2023 16:12 Now more than 500 thousand Viva-MTS subscribers use the VoLTE service 28/10/2023 10:44 Five times more internet in MTS Russia network 24/10/2023 16:53 “Recharge+”: now for up to AMD 3000 20/10/2023 11:05 Amundi-Acba made the first direct investment in the equities of an Armenian company 18/10/2023 14:53 Viva-MTS is the General Partner of the State Award of Republic of Armenia for Global Contribution to Humanity through High-Tech 16/10/2023 14:46 “UNLIM” tariff plan also available for postpaid subscribers 13/10/2023 12:35 Solar energy in Viva-MTS mobile stations: saving resources and oxygen 04/10/2023 18:06 Technological support to farmers: Electric fences in the border village of Vahan 27/09/2023 10:25 Financial support in the amount of 123 million drams from Karen Vardanyan to the families having many children, evicted as a result of the 44-day war (Video) 18/09/2023 14:15 President Samvel Shahramanyan has appointed Artur Harutyunyan as State Minister 07/09/2023 23:24 Ex-Ambassador Mikayel Minasyan: “Will Armenia face a war or not?” 31/08/2023 18:28 Ex-Ambassador Mikayel Minasyan has provided an analysis of the Armenian issue 30/08/2023 19:30 S&P Upgrades Ameriabank to 'BB-', Outlook Stable 26/08/2023 13:52 Ex-Ambassador Mikayel Minasyan calls for unconditional consolidation to preserve national identity and save Stepanakert 26/08/2023 13:51 Ex-Ambassador Mikayel Minasyan: “The situation still has a diplomatic resolution” 25/08/2023 12:29 Freedom Broker Introduces Full Brokerage Services for Individuals, Pioneering the Market in Armenia 15/08/2023 12:36 Ameriabank Wins in 3 Nominations of Global Finance World’s Best Digital Bank Awards 2023 01/08/2023 13:55 «Viva University»: Starting inception for university students 01/08/2023 09:57 “I do not know how to interpret the persecution of talented and creative people who have served Armenia all their lives” Defender of Armen and Sergey Smbatyans 19/07/2023 16:16 Amundi-Acba made a huge investment in the RA economy 19/07/2023 10:30 Electric Fences are a new replacement for scarecrows: modern technologies made available to villages by Viva-MTS 14/07/2023 11:39 Viva-MTS presents a podcast series on a variety of themes 13/07/2023 16:45 20,000 trees were mulched in Lori with the support of Viva-MTS Partnership to increase forest cover in Armenia 11/07/2023 11:42 A modern infrastructure system has been launched in border village of Koti 04/07/2023 18:39 Ameriabank Receives 4 Sustainable Finance Awards from Global Finance 01/07/2023 10:52 Viva-MTS turns 18: The best is yet to come 30/06/2023 20:18 Shell brand is already in Armenia. The first fuel stations were put into operation 29/06/2023 15:51 Moody's changes Ameriabank's outlook to stable; affirms Ba3 rating 28/06/2023 16:00 The latest volume of the book series "The Armenians of the World” " is dedicated to Armenian philanthropists of the world 27/06/2023 16:22 Mobile “Electric fences” in Yeghegis community have become an “obstacle” for bears 22/06/2023 13:16 Viva-MTS: Harmless interaction between "Electric Fences" and bears 22/06/2023 11:35 Governor of the State of Kansas Laura Kelly visited Tsitsernakaberd memorial 22/06/2023 10:57 Flynas started operating flights on the route Riyadh-Yerevan-Riyadh 16/06/2023 11:42 MyInvest. Ameriabank has Launched an Online Investment Platform 15/06/2023 13:04 Four projects of infrastructure development in border village Koghb 13/06/2023 15:36 Practical business skills in focus of CaseKey 2023–Byblos Bank Armenia partnership 12/06/2023 12:03 International experience and new football skills: Milan Academy Junior Camp wraps up in Yerevan 09/06/2023 13:55 Viva-MTS’ digital B2B services show steady growth 06/06/2023 12:33 Viva-MTS expands and strengthens the entire mobile infrastructure along with the development of the 5G network 05/06/2023 11:31 Partnership for Environmental Protection and Community Development 03/06/2023 11:56 15 schoolchildren face Gabriel Sargissian in open-air simultaneous display (Video) 02/06/2023 15:53 Team Telecom Armenia is undertaking its initial public offering (IPO) 01/06/2023 10:43 We hope that some of these Armenian children will become professional football players. Claudio Zola 01/06/2023 10:18 On the occasion of June 1st Karen Vardanyan provided 115 million drams to the parentless children of Yerevan 31/05/2023 19:15 Team Group of Companies has acquired 30% of Georgian SkyTel 29/05/2023 13:34 Fly Arna launches new direct flights connecting Yerevan to Kuwait 25/05/2023 14:33 Regional Call Center of Viva-MTS opens in Vanadzor