AMB. EVANS SPEAKS FOR THE FIRST TIME ABOUT HIS GENOCIDE
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
12-03-2007 22:07:00 | USA | Articles and Analyses
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
The USC Institute of Armenian Studies honored former U.S.
ambassador to Armenia John Marshall Evans during a gala banquet
celebrating its second anniversary on March 4, at the Beverly
Hilton Hotel, in Beverly Hills. More than 900 guests attended
the event during which over $1 million was raised for the
Institute.
I was asked to introduce Amb. Evans at the banquet. Below
is the text of my introductory remarks followed by the text of
the keynote address of Amb. Evans:
Harut Sassounian's introduction of Amb. Evans:
We just watched together, for the first time, the recently
discovered video of the profoundly moving remarks that
Ambassador John Evans made two years ago in Fresno. He delivered
similarly candid remarks during the rest of his February 2005
tour of Boston, Los Angeles and Berkeley.
As the video showed, Ambassador Evans spoke about the
Armenian Genocide in an "honest, forthright and sensitive"
manner. He did not make a slip of the tongue. He did not play
word games. He called a spade a spade by referring to the
Armenian Genocide simply as...GENOCIDE!
He knew that his honesty could cost him his job. And it
did.
Before going to Fresno, on his first morning in Los
Angeles, he invited me to have breakfast with him, during which
he freely discussed the Armenian Genocide in the presence of
three other State Department and U.S. Embassy officials. He said
he had studied the Armenian Genocide extensively and asked for
specific documents on this issue.
For those not familiar with the political gamesmanship
involving this serious matter, I must explain that no federal
official has dared to use the term "Armenian Genocide," since
Pres. Reagan's proclamation 1981. Successive U.S.
administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have avoided the
term "Armenian Genocide," in order to placate the Turkish
government, in disgraceful complicity with its denialist policy.
At our breakfast meeting, I was intrigued by Amb. Evans'
intense interest in the Armenian Genocide. I was surprised at
his forthright manner of speaking about this issue. I was even
more surprised, when in the following days, during his public
remarks at various venues, he openly spoke about the Armenian
Genocide. While his Armenian audiences were stunned by his frank
remarks, they were concerned about any possible damage his words
may cause to his career.
Ambassador Evans is a highly educated and experienced
diplomat. He had studied Russian History at Yale and Columbia.
He served in various diplomatic posts in Tehran, Prague, Moscow,
St. Petersburg, the U.S. Mission to NATO, and as Deputy Director
of the Soviet Desk, among others.
Regrettably, the prophetic words you heard him say in the
video, about the risk of losing his job for talking about the
Armenian Genocide, came true.
Immediately upon returning to Washington, D.C. from
California, he courageously told his superiors at the State
Department that he had acknowledged the Armenian Genocide,
during his visits with the Armenian-American community.
After receiving complaints from Turkish officials and their
lobbyists, the State Department forced Amb. Evans to issue a
retraction as well as a correction, stating that he was
expressing his personal opinion and not government policy, and
that he should not have used the word genocide.
Several months later, when the American Foreign Service
Association granted him the "Constructive Dissent" Award for his
outspoken views on the Armenian Genocide, the State Department
made him give up that prestigious honor.
Unfortunately, after all that, this distinguished career
diplomat was forced into "early retirement" from the US Foreign
Service. This very honest and highly competent civil servant's
career was terminated for courageously speaking the truth.
Under the rules of ethics and morality, honesty should be
rewarded, not punished! And justice demands that those who lie
get fired -- not those who tell the truth!
Ambassador Evans, the good and humble man that he is,
cannot understand why he's being honored today for simply
speaking the truth. He cannot understand why Armenians worldwide
are calling him a national hero and a "modern day Henry
Morgenthau" -- another righteous U.S. Ambassador who did
everything in his power to save the perishing Armenians during
the genocide of 1915 in Turkey.
In closing, I must say that Ambassador Evans did not just
dwell on the genocide issue during his two-year tenure in
Armenia.
He and his wife Donna were deeply engaged in every aspect
of Armenian life. To the last day of his service in Yerevan,
Amb. Evans was initiating projects, funding new programs, and
helping to strengthen the rule of law and democracy in Armenia.
He even learned to speak some Armenian and gave brief talks
in the Armenian language. He loved Armenia and its people.
John and Donna Evans went beyond the call of duty to assist
the fledgling Republic of Armenia for which Ambassador Evans was
decorated by President Kocharian with one of the highest medals
of the Republic.
Ambassador Evans deserves the undying gratitude of the
Armenian nation for his distinguished service to the United
States of America, the Republic of Armenia and his sacrifices
for the Armenian Cause!
Ambassador John Evans remarks:
I do find it unusual that anyone, even a former government
official, should be honored simply for telling the truth. It
should not be that way. Perhaps this is a sad commentary on our
times.
In any case, no one should imagine that they owe me any
thanks for telling the truth.
When I called the Events of 1915 by their historically
correct name - which is "genocide" - I used a word the U.S.
Government does not currently employ. As you have just witnessed
in this short film, I knew what I was doing and knew it might
have consequences for my career. The decision was wholly mine.
No one put me up to it. I stand by it. I have taken
responsibility for it, paid a price for it. As a consequence, I
am free to be with you this evening in support of the USC
Institute of Armenian Studies.
None of us in this room is so naïve as to imagine that the
official foreign policy of great states - even of the United
States - is ever based solely on "the truth." As educated
people, we also are aware that even arriving at and defining the
truth can be difficult. But in the real world, when an official
policy diverges wildly from what the broad public believes is
self-evident, that policy ceases to command respect.
Let me give you an example: You may remember the Iraqi
Minister of Information, who, as Coalition Forces were closing
in on Baghdad, asked his television viewers, "whom do you
believe, your eyes or my words?" Not surprisingly, we all
believed our own eyes.
Of course, when it comes to events that occurred over
ninety years ago, we must rely not on our own eyes, but on
eyewitness like Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Consul Leslie
Davis, on historians, diplomatic archives - and on the survivors
themselves.
The overwhelming consensus of these sources is that the
tragic events of 1915, despite all the complicating factors of
war, rebellion and Great Power politics, constituted genocide.
Above the entrance to the State Department Library, there
stands a quotation from Thomas Jefferson, some of whose books
are in that library. It proclaims: "We are not afraid to follow
Truth wherever it may lead, nor [are we afraid] to tolerate any
error, so long as Reason is free to combat it."
Unfortunately Reason - which tells us that there was a
genocide in 1915 -is not everywhere free today to combat false
assertions that the deaths of as many as one and one half
million Armenians came about as the result of mere
"relocations," "some excesses," "a few mishaps," "disease and
famine." One country's official policy of denying the Armenian
Genocide interferes with the process of seeking the truth; other
countries' policies of going along with this denial do not serve
the truth. Instead what we have seen is the horrific murder of
Hrant Dink forty days ago.
Over the last twenty years or so, American politicians and
diplomats have been urging authorities in other parts of the
world to listen to civil society and to take into account what
civil society -- that is, the realm of opinion outside official
circles -- thinks. A resolution of the Congress of the United
States calling on the Administration to take into account the
fact of the Armenian Genocide would be fully in harmony with
this principle.
The Armenian Genocide should be recognized as such by this
Congress.
Many people have asked me why, two years ago, I decided to
speak out on the Armenian Genocide. I am not Armenian. I have no
Armenian relatives, even by marriage, and in a diplomatic career
of thirty-five years, I had never before encountered a U.S.
Government policy that I did not like and could not support,
certainly not in my own area of responsibility -- until, as the
new U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, I ran up hard against the issue
of the Armenian Genocide. I believe I owe people an explanation.
I have, therefore, started writing a book to explain the
intellectual journey that took me from knowing next to nothing
about Armenia, Armenians, and the Genocide, to the point where I
felt I had to break publicly with U.S. Government on this issue.
I hope the story of my own intellectual journey may help others,
particularly those whose names, like my own, do not end in
"-ian", to reach a similar understanding.
In my book I intend not only to explain my own actions, but
also to look at some of the things that could and should be done
to deal with the great wound and the resulting problem posed by
the Genocide. This is a difficult subject on which honest people
can disagree, and do, but I already have several ideas that I
hope to develop. I do not plan to work in a vacuum, but rather
to talk to people on all sides of the issue, many of whom are in
this room. I dare to hope that some of my readers will be
Turkish-Americans and even Turks.
In the meantime, there is much work to be done. First and
foremost, the Republic of Armenia needs our help. I am
personally proud to have been involved in implementing the U.S.
Government's official assistance programs, which now include the
hugely important Millennium Challenge Account. Taken together,
the official assistance programs of all the donor countries and
institutions have made a measurable difference in Armenia. The
California Trade Office is now open for business in Yerevan, and
investment is taking place, if more slowly than one would like.
I know that many of you personally and through your work have
also made generous contributions and investment in Armenia.
Thank you for all you have done and, no doubt, will continue to
do for Armenia. Armenia is facing elections over the next twelve
months. The United States is attempting to help Armenia to stage
the best possible free and fair elections, in the belief that
strengthening democracy will strengthen Armenia itself.
Obviously not all Armenians live in the Republic, and it is
also important that the needs of Diasporans, especially young
people, be met. For that reason, I want especially to salute the
USC Institute of Armenian Studies, which, despite its relative
youth, is doing a great job of ensuring that Armenian history,
arts, science and letters receive the serious academic attention
they deserve. The Institute should become even more capable,
after this evening's fund-raising event, of providing a vibrant
center for the growing community of scholars it serves.
In any family there will always be divisions and
differences of opinion, even bitter quarrels. As an "odar" and
friend of your particular family, I think I can safely say that
the Armenian-American community is at its best when it joins
forces for a common cause, as happened most notably in 1988 at
the time of the earthquake. To the extent that unnecessary
divisions can be overcome, without sacrificing democracy, the
community will become stronger and more capable of achieving its
goals. Unity does not always need to occur as a result of
tragedy and disaster. Supporting the USC Institute of Armenian
Studies ought to be one of those unifying issues that merits
your unified and continuing support.
Although we have spent some time tonight thinking about the
past, I personally am looking forward to what we can achieve in
the future, working closely together as we have done in the
past. Pari yerego yev shnorhagalutiun!