Today Is April 24 the 110th Anniversary of the Non-retributed Armenian Genocide and I Demand Justice!

It is impunity that is at the core of the problem, not violence and atrocities. Every nation is capable of inflicting violence and death upon another nation. It is part of human nature. But some check themselves, or are checked by the threat of law or punishment, sanctions, and the like. Some brazen ones will not heed any disciplinary action, lacking any human decency that could require them to stop, out of respect for their fellow human beings. Xenophobia and hatred play an important role in this, and dehumanization justifies the crime of genocide. After all, victims ask for it, and being less than human, it gives the perpetrator every right to deal with them in the most extreme of measures possible.

There are even manuals for a ‘clean’ war according to the UN and other useless bodies. There are laws against ‘war crimes’ as if war itself were not dirty and criminal enough. How can there be a clean war? And isn’t war a crime to start with? So are we referring to a crime within a crime? It sounds ridiculous. And what about the international bodies that will do nothing but tap the hand of the perpetrator, and issue them heedless warnings… These are useless acts that give only lip service and do not help the victims of violence in any tangible way, nor do they put an end to atrocities. It is like telling a hungry tiger you cross in the forest not to attack you, and handing it a manual that explains how to do it morally, humanely, steering away from ‘war crimes’. The animal doesn’t even know how to read, let alone collaborate. Impunity is an acquiescence for the criminal to continue committing the crime. In criminal justice, it is a crime to obstruct the way to justice, to cover up a crime, or to knowingly fail to mention a fact that may lead to apprehending a criminal. In politics, economic gain, geopolitical strategies, and power politics drive justice into the wall.

I am the granddaughter of a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. I have heard the stories of the deportations firsthand from my grandmother. Her father, my great-grandfather, was a priest in Kaiseri, Anatolia, and was hanged in 1915 at the start of the mass genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Armenians from Eastern Turkey. That was Western Armenia before the Turkic tribes established themselves in Asia Minor (known as the Armenian plateau) and became the unlawful occupiers of what were, up to that point, Byzantium and Armenia. In a highly characteristic manner of blaming the victim, my great-grandfather, Fr. Ghevont Gemidjian, senior priest in Kaiseri’s St. Gregory the Illuminator Church, was accused of terrorism, and of storing ammunition in the church… sounds familiar? Of course, it does. Perpetrators need to find an excuse, a reason for their act to go unpunished, and even justified. These were very shrewd perpetrators and knew what they were doing. Their lessons filtered down through the decades and were followed to the smallest detail during WW II and are even instructed today; a textbook of Genocide. And they dare say it was not one, they invented it! And even proclaimed in 2023 that they were prepared to finish off what was started back then. So in other words, they did not deny their initial crime.

The manual says. Find a fault with the victim, announce a punishment, deport the others “for their safety and good”, if they do not collaborate, the threat of bombs and killing works. When all else fails, starve them to death either through blockades, for those who stay, and other forms of deprivation, such as imprisonment, cutting off electricity and water, and making life unbearable, or creating such dire conditions that they fall off and die on their own. Make sure to destroy the infrastructure, hospitals, schools, and places of worship, so the survivors can never come back. The victims usually leave, or if they do not, another pretext can easily be found to wipe them out once and for all, when the world is busy elsewhere, deliberately looking the other way, or when the most important allies have already been bought and pocketed. You have already shown them that you are a reliable partner, even though by their definition, you are a criminal. Who cares about definitions since morality has lost its meaning?

A crime against humanity kills the morality that is left, when those who are left look the other way, or knowingly keep silent, driven by immoral pursuits.

Impunity is an immoral act that discredits whatever humanity is left in the world.