Ignoring genocide won’t make it go away

Published: Saturday April 14, 2007

This week at the United Nations, Turkey taught the world a valuable lesson: the enormity of genocide is easily subordinated to political expediency.

At the United Nations, the new secretary-general was about to open an exhibit on the Rwandan genocide. The exhibit depicted this crime against humanity, which began in 1994 and - as the United Nations and the international community stood by - left some 800,000 people dead.

The exhibit included a small panel on Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer who in 1933 campaigned in the League of Nations - the precursor of the United Nations - to recognize "barbarity" as a crime against humanity and in 1943 coined a new word for the crime, "genocide." It was the Armenian Genocide that got Mr. Lemkin interested in the concept of crimes against humanity, and so, naturally, the panel noted, "one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey" during the First World War.

This passing reference was unacceptable to the permanent representative of Turkey at the United Nations. He went to see Kiyotaka Akasaka, the new undersecretary-general for public information, to have the reference removed.

Mr. Akasaka called up the Aegis Trust, which had organized the exhibit and had gotten it approved by the UN Secretariat, and asked them to address Turkey's concern. Aegis contacted, among others, Armen Martirossian, Armenia's permanent representative. Mr. Martirossian met with the undersecretary-general. "To make sure the Rwanda exhibit went ahead," Armenia's ambassador proposed taking out the direct reference to Turkey.

The undersecretary-general presented the compromise language to Turkey's delegate, who was apparently not satisfied; Mr. Akasaka told Aegis the entire reference would have to be removed. Aegis quite rightly and to its enormous credit refused to remove the reference. The reference didn't have to be there in the first place, Aegis CEO James Smith told The Associated Press. But once the Armenian reference "was there and approved, we felt as a matter of principle you can't just go around striking things out," he said. "It is a form of denial, and as an organization that deals with genocide issues, we couldn't do that on any genocide, and we can't do this."

The undersecretary-general then ordered the exhibit postponed "until further review."

Armenia's Foreign Ministry rightly calls this decision "shameful." Here was "an event which was to provide lessons on how to respect human rights and prevent genocides. Instead, the lesson here is one of total disrespect for history and memory."

The message from Turkey is clear. Forget the Armenian Genocide at all costs. If that means forgetting Rwanda too, so be it. Pretend all is well in Darfur if you must.

We say No.

The United Nations is responsible for confronting crimes against humanity, not for sweeping them under the rug. The secretary-general must rise to his calling and take a stand against denial.

The functionaries at the United Nations are not elected officials and are thus not especially responsive to popular sentiment. Nonetheless, the new secretary-general should hear from us. We should urge the UN to proceed with the Rwanda exhibit intact.?

Please contact the secretary-general at the following address:

The Honorable Ban Ki-moon Secretary-General United Nations New York, NY 10017 Fax: +1 212 963 2155 or +1 212 963 7055 Tel: +1 212 963 5012 Email: sg@un.org