!ßÈÀ face="Verdana" size="2">The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in January 2003 issued a “legal” document that answered a question that had, in fact, not been posed to it by the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC). This hypothetical question was, “Would the Armenian incidents be called genocide if the Genocide Convention could be applied retroactively?” The answer volunteered by the ICTJ was “Yes.” This gave the Armenians a chance to claim that they are “in the right” from the legal angle as well -- without having to go to court or seek arbitration, something they dread.

  The ICTJ is not a judicial authority. And it has no history of conducting studies on the genocide issue. During the time the Apartheid regime was collapsing in South Africa it merely engaged in a kind of reconciliation effort between the victims and the persecutors of that regime. Still, David L. Phillips and the Armenians are presenting the ICTJ as a kind of judicial authority.

  Since the very beginning David Phillips had obviously known about the outcome of the ICTJ study that yielded the aforementioned document. In fact, on some occasions he had said that it would be the right kind of give-and-take if the Armenians dropped their demands for land and compensation and Turkey “admitted the genocide” in return. (We had said that was not possible.) It is exactly that kind of outcome that the ICTJ study has brought about.

  It has been kept secret whether the ICTJ received any payment for the study that it had been commissioned for and if it did how much was that sum and who shared it.

  We have not been able to find out the identity of the person who drafted the document, the person described only as an “independent legal counsel.” That person must be so ashamed of the nature of the document that he or she has preferred to remain in the dark. However, the quality of the document has given us the impression that the “jurist” in question is only a newcomer to the study of the genocide law.

  Contrary to the procedure that had been agreed upon in advance we were denied a chance to hold joint meetings and to relay our views directly to the rapporteur. Thus we could not criticize the draft he or she had written and suggest that the erroneous parts be omitted from the text and replaced with correct information. In other words, the Turkish side was not given a chance to defend its views in the course of a “legal study” that claims to be a substitute for arbitration or adjudication.

  The document does not provide a description of the term “Events” when referring to the Armenian incidents. Rather than the term “forced relocation” it uses the term “deportation” and that is on only one occasion (page 12). Our famous jurist obviously does not know that in legal terminology deportation means something else.

  The document notes that according to the preparatory work related to the International Criminal Court (ICC) genocide would consist of four “elements of crime.” Then it says that three of these (namely, the act of killing, the victims being members of the same group, and the conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern…) can be seen in the Armenian incidents (p. 13). But he/she forgets that these three elements of the crime are also seen in Armenian attacks on Turkish/Muslim inhabitants of the region.

  In this context the report says it reached that conclusion on the basis of “newspaper reports,” the “memoirs” of the Ottoman and foreign officials and Armenian survivors as well as the “other documents contained in government archives” and the work of eminent historians beginning with Arnold Toynbee (p.14).

  The fourth “element” of the crime of genocide would be “the intent to destroy.” The document says that the fourth element too was present in the Armenian incidents. It argues that can be deduced from the “overwhelming majority of the accounts.” Obviously “accounts” do not constitute legal proof.

  The document admits that the “acts of genocide” are committed by persons (meaning that there is no state responsibility). Despite that, it says that what is asked from him/her (no one knows who asked) is to analyze whether the convention is applicable to the Events, “collectively” (p.14). This is a contradiction.

  It adopts the language used when describing the Holocaust, saying that it would be “legally appropriate” to maintain that the Events constituted genocide … on the basis of a conclusion that they were perpetrated with the intent of permanently resolving the, “Armenian question.” (p.16).

  The document maintains the fact that some “righteous Turks” had tried to save the Armenians means that these efforts resulted from the knowledge that the latter were on their way to their deaths. It refers to these efforts as evidence proving the presence of the “intent to destroy,” (p. 18).

  Then the writer of the document remembers that “the discussion of the appropriate standard for intent is inherently fact-specific,” -- and proceeds to say:  “We do not express an opinion on the standard that might be applied in any particular determination of whether the Events constituted genocide.” Thus the door is kept ajar to provide an escape route to get away from the aforementioned absurdities in the document.

  The document does not contain any reference to the contents of any historical document, not even as an example. It fails to refer to the way the Armenians had rebelled to the Ottoman state in order to set up an independent state in eastern Anatolia or to the way the Armenian bands had attacked civilians. It does not mention the way they collaborated with the invading Russian army. It does not refer to the military requirement for the relocation. Nor does it refer to the population figures and the epidemics. It does not mention concrete cases of genocidal acts and it does not accuse any individuals.

  And this is called a legal study.