Genocide Scholars Becoming More Aware of the Assyrian Genocide
In the next installment of the Assyrian Genocide Research Center's interviews with Assyrian Genocide experts, Joseph Haweil speaks with one of the world's foremost Assyrian Genocide scholars, Professor David Gaunt.
David Gaunt completed his doctorate at Uppsala University 1975 and is presently professor of history at Södertörn University.
Professor Gaunt's 2006 book Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I is a seminal work on the Assyrian Genocide.
Can you tell us about your personal and academic background?
I was born in England during World War II and grew up in the United States. My father's family is all English from Yorkshire, my mother's family is Jewish from Ukraine. I came to Sweden in 1968 and have lived here ever since.
I have taught at Uppsala, Umeå and Södertörn universities. In addition I have led research at the Swedish Institute for Future Research and for Stockholm Social Services. I have written, co-written or edited about twenty books and over one hundred articles. Most of my early research was on Swedish social history or contemporary social problems. Besides writing about the Assyrian genocide I have written about genocide and mass violence against Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Kurds and Armenians.
When did you initially learn of the Assyrian Genocide and what sparked your interest in writing about it?
I was giving a lecture on the Jewish and Roma Holocaust sometime in the late 1990s. Some of the listeners came up afterwards and said they were Assyrians and asked me if I knew anything about the Assyrian genocide. I said I knew nothing, but was willing to learn if they had any literature, documents and so on. After a time one of them came back with the only thing he could find at that time, which was Suleyman Hinno's collection of oral history of Seyfo in Tur Abdin. This began my collection of literature and documents. The students also introduced me to Jan Betsawoce who had a private collection of works on Assyrian issues and we began to co-operate and he became my assistant. Together we have tried to build up a complete collection of books, articles and archival documents on Seyfo. We have collected from Turkey, Lebanon, Syr ia, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, the Vatican, USA, England, France and Germany. Both of us are very interested in languages. From the beginning, the primary need was to make available the books and documents that had been forgotten or were written in unusual languages. We have translated quite a number of older sources into Swedish or English and will keep on doing this. Usually we get sponsorship for printing the books from local Assyrian groups or associations, and for this we are very grateful. However, after a while it became obvious that just publishing documents was not enough and we began to analyze the findings and put them into modern genocide research and began to publish articles and books based on original research.
Are you currently undertaking Assyrian Genocide related research? If so, what areas and sources are you presently examining?
At present I am working on making a sociological profile of the perpetrators of the genocide in order to see what their motives were. I am also examining the long-term relations between Assyrians and Kurds as many sources mention that Assyrians were sometimes aided and supported by individual Kurds and Yezidis and even whole tribes. What was the background to this co-operation? Jan Betsawoce and I are in the process of publishing translations of the rather obscure French-language journal L'Action Assyro-Chaldéene, which was published in Beirut in the early 1920s and was a major Assyrian information channel for the politically engaged. It took us a very long time even to find issues of this paper. Also we are preparing a bibliography of books and articles dealing with Seyfo, we are not yet finished, but it is more than 70 pages long. We think this will be a very important reference work.
Your book 'Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I' can be considered amongst the most important, if not the most important contemporary primary-source work on the Assyrian Genocide. What advice would you give to both Assyrian and non-Assyrian scholars interested in Assyrian Genocide primary-source research?
My advice has several points. We must have more archive research as there are many blank spaces. For instance, the archives in Iran have not been used yet, but what has been published gives great insight into what was happening in the Turkish-Iranian border strip where the first Assyrian groups were massacred already in February 1915 and where a second wave of massacres occurred in 1918. Can we see who ordered the assassination of Mar Shimun? Also the Turkish military-history archive obviously has a vast material on the actions of troops against Assyrian villages. We have just scraped the surface with our work on the siege of Azakh and there were about 30 different documents on this in that archive. There should be equally as much documentation for the battle for Midyat and the siege of Aynwardo. There sho uld be very much about the military campaign against the Nestorian tribes in Hakkari. We have the feeling that there are lots of generations' old private papers that could give new perspectives on events: there are manuscripts in people's attics and storage rooms that can give great detail about events. As we were working on the siege of Azakh, many different families came forward with diaries, poems, chronicles and so on that dealt with the Turkish siege of that little town. Similar materials need to be recovered, restored and in case they are very important, published in edited form. Many central places of documentation are not yet open for research. For some strange reason the family of General Agha Petros deny access to his papers. And my assistants have not succeeded in accessing the archive and libraries of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus or the Syrian Catholic monastery in Sharfe, Lebanon where one of the most important early writers on Seyfo, Ishak Armale was a teacher. We would very much like to read his manuscripts. Further, researchers need to put the genocide into comparison with all of the other major genocides. What happened to the Assyrians was different from what happened to the Armenians -- why? For instance the Armenians were deported on long death marches, but the Assyrians with few exceptions were killed in their home villages without deportation. There was much political hate-speech against the Armenians, but very little of this towards the Assyrians, even so both groups were eradicated. We need more work with a gender perspective on the fates of women and children. More attention should be placed on the righteous Muslim neighbors who protected their Assyrian neighbors.
Although the Assyrian Genocide recognition movement has expanded and gained greater attention during the last decade, do you consider the frequency of scholarly publication on the issue to have slowed during the same period?
No I don't think scholarly publication has slowed down at all. Before 2000 almost nothing had been written on Seyfo that one could even consider calling scholarly. The only exception that comes to mind is Joseph Yacoub's dissertation at the Catholic University in Lyon, France. It deals mostly with how the League of Nations dealt with the Assyrian question, but it touches on the genocide in its background chapters and it is still a very useful piece of research. The influential works written in the 1980s by the American professor John Joseph gloss over Seyfo, and can therefore be used by those who stop genocide recognition. Almost everything we now know about the details has come in the last 10 years.
How important is the staging of frequent scholarly conferences on the Assyrian Genocide? Do you feel that the frequency of such conferences is insufficient or that too often it is Assyrian activists organising these conferences rather than universities or scholars themselves?
Actually there haven't been very many academic conferences on the Assyrian genocide at all. But it does happen that when scholars working with the Armenian genocide gather they invite someone to present the Assyrian case. It would be very good to have meetings that were exclusively dedicated to the Assyrian genocide issue. A first meeting of this type will be held in Holland in June this year. It may prove an embryo to something greater.
In 2007, the International Association of Genocide Scholars recognised the Assyrian Genocide. Since then, do you think that IAGS has done enough to support Assyrian Genocide scholarship or advocate for Assyrian Genocide recognition?
Yes, the IAGS has recognized the Assyrian genocide along with that of the Greeks. I am not a member so I don't know the background very well and I don't know what kind of evidence they were presented with. This is a mixed association of scholars and activists, but has as far as I know it has no international political influence and does not have a lot of money. The organization had a conference in Sarajevo in 2007 and there took a vote on a petition presented by some of the membership. I don't see what they could do much more that make their declaration and spread it. I have heard that the organization's president Israel Charny has recently put on the internet some articles on the Assyrian and Greek genocides, but I have not read them. I think if we are looking for more influence and funding it must in the fir st hand come from inside the Assyrian community itself. As it is now only a few --as we say in Swedish "souls on fire" in Sweden, Holland and the USA have privately supported research and that has been mostly in the form of paying for translations, printing costs or enabling research trips. This money is a very welcome form of help, but there is a need for more continuous support. Support for research on Seyfo should be coming from a much larger part of the Assyrian community, otherwise it will look as if the Assyrians themselves don't think this event was particularly important.
As you are aware, scholars focusing on the Assyrian Genocide are few. Why do genocide scholars broadly speak so little about the fate of co-victims of the Ottoman Empire's genocide (the Assyrians and Greeks), as opposed to that of the Armenians?
Genocide scholars are more and more aware of the Assyrian genocide. What scholars need is the results of new research. More and more the Assyrian case is mentioned in general genocide text-books and new editions of older works have new sections covering Assyrians. But we are starting from a very, very low level of knowledge and with very little resources other than the few burning-soul activists, who are not always given the credit that they deserve. The Armenians have a much longer tradition of research and they have produced many more books and articles. The Assyrian community cannot expect the same amount of attention, until it too has produced its own research and has presented its evidence. Most important: the Armenian community has co-operated with universities for a very long time. There are professorships sponsored by Armenia ns in many universities in USA and there are many universities that have programs in Armenian studies like UCLA, Michigan, Dearborn, Fresno etc. The Armenians have built up a major international research library in Paris based on the collection originally assembled by Nubar Pasha and there is a very good research center and library in Watertown, Massachusetts. The Assyrian community needs to build up similar intellectual resources.


005 08-2011-05 The Armenian Cause and International Law
Geneva -- Murder has been a sin since Cain killed Abel, long before the first attempts by lawyers to codify penal law, before the Hammurabi and other ancient codes. More fundamentally, murder is a crime by virtue of natural law, which is prior to and superior to positivistic law. Crimes against humanity and civilization were crimes before the British, French and Russian note condemned the Armenian massacres in 1915(1). Genocide was a crime before Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944 (2).
According to article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, general principles of law are a principal source of law. Not only positivistic law -- not only treaties, protocols and charters -- but also the immanent principles of law are sources of law before the ICJ and can be invoked. Among such principles are "ex injuria non oritur jus" which lays down the rule that out of a violation of law no new law can emerge and no rights can be derived. This is a basic principle of justice -- and of common sense. Another general principle of law is "ubi jus, ibi remedium", where there is law, there is also a remedy, in other words, where there has been a violation of law, there must be restitution to the victims. This principle was reaffirmed by the Permanent Court of International Justice in its famous judgement in the Chorzow Factory Case in 1928. Another general principle is that the thief cannot keep the fruits of the crime. Another principle stipulates that the law must be applied in good faith, uniformly, not selectively. Thus, there is no international law à la carte.
And yet there are those who claim that the Armenians have no justiciable rights, because the Genocide Convention was only adopted 1948, more than thirty years after the Armenian genocide, and because treaties are not normally applied retroactively. This, of course, is a fallacy, because the Genocide Convention was drafted and adopted precisely in the light of the Armenian genocide and in the light of the Holocaust. Not only the Armenian Genocide but also the Holocaust predated the Convention, and no one would question the legitimacy of the claims of the survivors and descendants of the victims of the Holocaust, simply because the Nazi atrocities were committed before the entry into force of the Genocide convention. Moreover, this argumentation is a kind of red herring, intended to confuse and to distract attention from the legal basis of the Armenian claims. Indeed, the rights of the Armenians do not derive from the Genocide Convention. Rather: the Genocide Convention strengthens the pre-existing rights of the Armenian to recognition as victims, to restitution and compensation (3).
Articles 144 and 230 of the Treaty of Sèvres , signed on 10 August 1920 by four representatives of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI, recognized the rights of the survivors of the extermination campaign against the Christian minorities of the Empire, including the Armenians, the Greeks from Pontos, the Chaldeo-Assyrians, and affirmed the obligation of the Turkish State to investigate these crimes and punish the guilty. Article 144 stipulated in part:
"The Turkish Government recognises the injustice of the law of 1915 relating to Abandoned Properties (Emval-i-Metroukeh), and of the supplementary provisions thereof, and declares them to be null and void, in the past as in the future. The Turkish Government solemnly undertakes to facilitate to the greatest possible extent the return to their homes and re-establishment in their businesses of the Turkish subjects of non-Turkish race who have been forcibly driven from their homes by fear of massacre or any other form of pressure since January 1, 1914. It recognises that any immovable or movable property of the said Turkish subjects or of the communities to which they belong, which can be recovered, must be restored to them as soon as possible, in whatever hands it may be found…" Article 230 stipulated in part:
"The Turkish Government undertakes to hand over to the Allied Powers the persons whose surrender may be required by the latter as being responsible for the massacres committed during the continuance of the state of war on territory which formed part of the Turkish Empire on August 1, 1914. The Allied Powers reserve to themselves the right to designate the tribunal which shall try the persons so accused, and the Turkish Government undertakes to recognise such tribunal…."
Even though the League of Nations never established an international criminal tribunal to try the Turkish perpetrators of the genocide against the Armenians and other Christian minorities, numerous trials under Turkish law did take place in Istanbul in 1919, even before the treaty of Sèvres was signed. The Turkish authorities conducted these trials against Ottoman officials involved in the genocide pursuant to the Ottoman penal code. Many were convicted and three persons were executed.
The Treaty of Sèvres, however, was not implemented, because of the coup d'état against the Sultan conducted by a Turkish general, Mustafa Kemal, who not only overthrew the Sultan but proceeded to wage war against the Greeks and the British, push them out of Anatolia and negotiate a new Peace Treaty with the Allies, which ensured impunity for the thousands of Turkish officials, officers and soldiers involved in the massacres.
To deny that the Armenian massacres amounted to genocide manifests both ignorance of the facts and bad faith. There is no doubt that the Armenian genocide was many times worse than the ethnic cleansing that occurred in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, a crime which the UN General Assembly in its resolution 47/121 (1992) considered "a form of genocide". There is no doubt that the massacres of the Armenians were many times worse than the massacre of Srebrenica, which the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice condemned as genocide.
But let us return to the general principle of law ubi jus ibi remedium. What is of relevance today is not the punishment of the guilty, because no person criminally responsible for the massacres is still alive. What is crucial is the right to the Armenian homeland, which entails the right to return and the right to restitution and compensation. In this context it is relevant to cite the final Report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Dimensions of Population Transfers, Awn Shawkat Al Khasawneh (today a judge at the ICJ).
The Declaration appended to the Report, which was formally adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and by ECOSOC provides in article 8: "Every person has the right to return voluntarily, and in safety and dignity, to the country of origin and, within it, to the place of origin or choice. The exercise of the right to return does not preclude the victim's right to adequate remedies, including restoration of properties of which they were deprived in connection with or as a result of population transfers, compensation for any property that cannot be restored to them, and any other reparations provided for in international law. " Article 10 reiterates the erga omnes obligation of all States not to recognize the consequences of crime: "Where acts or omissions prohibited in the present Declaration are committed, the international community as a whole and individual States, are under an obligation: (a) not to recognize as legal the situation created by such acts; (b) in ongoing situations, to ensure the immediate cessation of the act and the reversal of the harmful consequences; (c) not to render aid, assistance or support, financial or otherwise, to the State which has committed or is committing such act in the maintaining or strengthening of the situation created by such act."(4).
Similarly, the United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy, adopted by the General Assembly on 16 December 2005 stipulate in part in Article IX:
"19. Restitution should, whenever possible, restore the victim to the original situation before the gross violations of international human rights law or serious violations of international humanitarian law occurred. Restitution includes, as appropriate: restoration of liberty, enjoyment of human rights, identity, family life and citizenship, return to one's place of residence, restoration of employment and return of property. 20. Compensation should be provided for any economically assessable damage, as appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and the circumstances of each case, resulting from gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law, such as:
(a) Physical or mental harm; (b) Lost opportunities, including employment, education and social benefits; (c) Material damages and loss of earnings, including loss of earning potential; (d) Moral damage; (e) Costs required for legal or expert assistance, medicine and medical services, and psychological and social services."(5) Since there is no statute of limitations applicable in cases of genocide and crimes against humanity, the Armenian claims to restitution and compensation continue to be valid to this day. Most importantly, however, the Armenians have a right to recognition as victims of genocide. They have a right to truth (6) and a right to historical memory. Such recognition is a fundamental human right and a sine qua non to reconciliation. For decades the Armenians were victims of silence. And indeed, the crime of silence is worse than that of negationism. International law will ensure that truth and justice shall prevail.
(1) Vahakn Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, ISBN 1571816666; "The Armenian Genocide and the Legal and Political Issues in the Failure to Prevent or Punish the Crime", 29 U. West L.A. Law Review, 43.
(2) Alfred de Zayas, The Genocide against the Armenians 1915-1923 and the Relevance of the 1948 Genocide Convention, Haigazian Univesity Press, Lebanon 2010, ISBN13: 978-9953-475-15-8.
(3) Cf. Geoffrey Robertson, «Was there an Armenian Genocide ? » Legal Opinion, 9 October 2009, London, ISBN 978-0-09564086-0-0.
(4) E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/23.
(5) http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/remedy.htm
(6)http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/E/HRC/resolutions/A_HRC_RES_9_11.pdf; UN Doc A/HRC/12/19, Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Right to the truth (2009).