HDK Peoples’ Democratic Congress: Armenian and Syriac Genocide of 1915 is an open wound and needs full legal closure

Turkey – The Peoples’ Democratic Congress (Turkish: Halkların Demokratik Kongresi, HDK) released a statement to the press in which it states that the open wound, which is the Genocide on Armenian and Syriac peoples in Anatolia and Mesopotamia by the Ottoman-Turkish ruling classes, can only be healed if the legal successors bid for apology. The apology needs to be accompanied by a legal prosecution for genocide crime and a settlement process, the right for an unconditional return for the living generations and the return of the assets of the Armenians and Syriacs. Only in this way can the open wound heal.

The HDK was established as an umbrella organization for numerous left-wing political movements, organizations and parties in Turkey. In 2012, the HDK established the political party Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). The HDP has in its rank’s parliamentarians Garo Paylan and Tuma Çelik.

Salient detail in the statement is that it does not say a single word about the important negative role of Kurdish tribes allied to the Young Turk CUP in the Genocide of 1915.

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“April 18, 1915 and April 24, 1915 are the dates of two great tragedies of the period under rule of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress: the Syriac and Armenian genocides… Armenians and Syriacs, who were among the ancient peoples of Anatolia and Mesopotamia, were subjected to a genocidal massacre by a handful of exploiting groups under the guise of “security policy reasons” and a “question of survival”.

The Armenian Genocide of 1915 was a planned and systematic crime against humanity… The Armenian Genocide is not just the killing of 1.5 million Armenians. It is the destruction of the culture that Anatolia has accumulated over many centuries. It destroyed Armenian literature, art, music, craftsmanship, the impoverishment of Anatolia as a whole, the drying of the springs of life and the cutting of one of the roots…

This crime has been an open wound for 105 years. The politics of the Ottoman-Turkish ruling classes, the denial of genocide, was also the character of the Republic of Turkey, a nation-state with monistic ideological and political foundations. The Syriac genocide (Sayfo) started a common thread up to today: from the Greek Exchange, the assimilation of all the peoples, the Wealth Tax, the massacres on Kurds, the 6-7 September pogroms, the murder of Hrant Dink, and the cooperation with ISIS gangs.

This common thread is the biggest obstacle for the peoples to establish a democratic society in an equal, free and peaceful way…

Our Congress, which struggles for a free, democratic, female libertarian and ecological society, believes that the only way for the people to live together in a relationship of peace and equal citizenship is to face the historical crimes that determine our current day and that the people, not the rulers, will have a voice and fair solution.

We once again respectfully bow in front of those who died in the 105th anniversary of the Armenian and Syriac Genocide. We state that we will continue the search for justice for the Armenian and Syriac peoples. And we call on our peoples to develop their self-organization against new massacres and genocide attempts.

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Ermeni ve Süryani Soykırımının 105. yılında bir kez daha ölenlerin önünde saygıyla eğiliyor, halklarının adalet arayışını sürdüreceğimizi bir daha ifade ediyor, yeni katliam ve soykırım girişimlerine karşı öz örgütlenmelerini geliştirmeye çağırıyoruz. https://t.co/I6ekzG9SEx

— HDK (@HDK_KONGRE) April 23, 2020