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Former Diplomat Reveals Secret State Dept. Attacks on 1980's Genocide Resolutions
WASHINGTON---A retired Foreign Service officer, U.S. Ambassador Arma Jane Karaer, recently revealed a series of shocking revelations about the State Department's behind-the-scenes efforts on behalf of Turkey during the 1980's to kill congressional initiatives commemorating the Armenian Genocide, according to now-public documents circulated today by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
The revelations are part of an oral history interview with Karaer, a foreign service officer who served, among other postings during her long diplomatic career, as a commercial officer in Ankara and as the State Department's senior Turkish desk officerr. Excerpts from her lengthy interview concerning Armenian issues, including Armenian genocide legislation before the U.S. Congress, are provided below.
"We're circulating Ambassador Karaer's interview--a truly stunning example of undisguised cynicism in the face of genocide and denial--as a public service," said Aram Hamparian, the executive director of the ANCA. "As painful as her callous remarks are to read, they do, in their candor, provide powerful insights into the depths to which U.S. officials have sunk in enforcing Turkey's genocide denial dictates. Sadly, it would sem the pervasive attitude of expediency over morality characterized by her words remains, even today, much more the rule rather than the exception among the senior ranks of our nation's Foreign Service."
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From the Library of Congress, Historical Collections (American Memory) Manuscript Division, the Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.
An interview with Ambassador Arma Jane Karaer by Charles Stuart Kennedy, April 19, 2004.
[EXCERPTED]
Q: Yes, absolutely. Anyway, I think we were all over the place, kind of rewriting the book on this and I had served in Yugoslavia for five years running the consular section and we'd had the same thing. I mean you learn to discriminate between the real communists and the ones who were kind of nominal or belong to the labor movement. If you've got a job you belong to a labor movement. Anyway, I mean it was a period of sort of revamping the rules.
KARAER: One of the things that we were doing in that office was trying to wipe out the ineligibilities of cases that came to our attention for which there was no fundamental proof that the person was ever a communist or was, in any sense, dangerous to the united States. Another thing that made me sensitive to this problem was a task that I undertook when I was in Istanbul. In my office there were two three-drawer filing cabinets with big bars and padlocks on them. Upon inquiring I found out that they contained files of refugees from Eastern Europe who had been processed in Istanbul through the refugee Relief Program. INS had taken whatever they wanted from those files and left years before, but my immigrant visa clerk, who was the world's greatest pack rat, didn't want to destroy them because she thought they might contain some original documents, like birth certificates.
........................................
Q: November 17th group, but anyhow.
KARAER: Yes So, that was their main focus as I recall. Turkey was the big, big issue, almost the whole time that I was there. About the time I arrived, then California Congressman Tony Coello had introduced a bill in the Post Office Committee of the House of Representatives to declare April 25th or April something Genocide Day. The purpose, ostensibly, was to help the American people recall the people who were lost in the so called Armenian genocide.
Why the post office committee? Of course this is a foreign policy thing. If the U.S. Congress says that their government committed a genocide it would enrage the Turks. However, there were a lot of Armenian Americans in Mr. Coello's congressional district, and apparently whatever makes the Turks unhappy, makes them happy. He probalby couldn't have even got it onto the schedule of the House Affairs.......
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2009/1...tate-dept-atta...
WASHINGTON---A retired Foreign Service officer, U.S. Ambassador Arma Jane Karaer, recently revealed a series of shocking revelations about the State Department's behind-the-scenes efforts on behalf of Turkey during the 1980's to kill congressional initiatives commemorating the Armenian Genocide, according to now-public documents circulated today by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
The revelations are part of an oral history interview with Karaer, a foreign service officer who served, among other postings during her long diplomatic career, as a commercial officer in Ankara and as the State Department's senior Turkish desk officerr. Excerpts from her lengthy interview concerning Armenian issues, including Armenian genocide legislation before the U.S. Congress, are provided below.
"We're circulating Ambassador Karaer's interview--a truly stunning example of undisguised cynicism in the face of genocide and denial--as a public service," said Aram Hamparian, the executive director of the ANCA. "As painful as her callous remarks are to read, they do, in their candor, provide powerful insights into the depths to which U.S. officials have sunk in enforcing Turkey's genocide denial dictates. Sadly, it would sem the pervasive attitude of expediency over morality characterized by her words remains, even today, much more the rule rather than the exception among the senior ranks of our nation's Foreign Service."
***
From the Library of Congress, Historical Collections (American Memory) Manuscript Division, the Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.
An interview with Ambassador Arma Jane Karaer by Charles Stuart Kennedy, April 19, 2004.
[EXCERPTED]
Q: Yes, absolutely. Anyway, I think we were all over the place, kind of rewriting the book on this and I had served in Yugoslavia for five years running the consular section and we'd had the same thing. I mean you learn to discriminate between the real communists and the ones who were kind of nominal or belong to the labor movement. If you've got a job you belong to a labor movement. Anyway, I mean it was a period of sort of revamping the rules.
KARAER: One of the things that we were doing in that office was trying to wipe out the ineligibilities of cases that came to our attention for which there was no fundamental proof that the person was ever a communist or was, in any sense, dangerous to the united States. Another thing that made me sensitive to this problem was a task that I undertook when I was in Istanbul. In my office there were two three-drawer filing cabinets with big bars and padlocks on them. Upon inquiring I found out that they contained files of refugees from Eastern Europe who had been processed in Istanbul through the refugee Relief Program. INS had taken whatever they wanted from those files and left years before, but my immigrant visa clerk, who was the world's greatest pack rat, didn't want to destroy them because she thought they might contain some original documents, like birth certificates.
........................................
Q: November 17th group, but anyhow.
KARAER: Yes So, that was their main focus as I recall. Turkey was the big, big issue, almost the whole time that I was there. About the time I arrived, then California Congressman Tony Coello had introduced a bill in the Post Office Committee of the House of Representatives to declare April 25th or April something Genocide Day. The purpose, ostensibly, was to help the American people recall the people who were lost in the so called Armenian genocide.
Why the post office committee? Of course this is a foreign policy thing. If the U.S. Congress says that their government committed a genocide it would enrage the Turks. However, there were a lot of Armenian Americans in Mr. Coello's congressional district, and apparently whatever makes the Turks unhappy, makes them happy. He probalby couldn't have even got it onto the schedule of the House Affairs.......
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2009/1...tate-dept-atta...