Asagida bir ABD hakiminin Santa Barbara gazetesinde Ermeni guruplarinin
sempatisini kazanmak, ve secimlerde oy toplamak icin yazdigi yaziyi
bulacaksiniz.
Bu hakim 1973de Amerikada ilk iki turk Diplomatini olduren Ermeninin
yargilanmasini yapan yargicdir. Mektubunda yargic olduguna cok
uzgun oldugunu Ermenilerin Turkleri Oldurmesinin bir hak oldugunu
belirtiyor ve Ermenilerden ozur diliyor ve tarihi gercekleri tek tarafli
ele alarak ASALA teror orgutunun Santa Barbara'da Konsolos oldurmekle
basladigi eylemlere son derece dogru bir hareket gozu ile bakiyor.
Tarihi gercekleri tamamiyle oy ugruna degistiren bu yaziyi yayinliyan
"Santa Barbara Independent Gazetesinin e-mail adresi asagida verilmisdir.
Asagida Hakim David D. Minner'in yazisi, ve onu takiben Turk Amerikan
Dernekleri Federasyonu Kalifornia Bolgesi Baskan Vekili Sayin Ergun
Kirlikova'nin hazirlamis oldugu yaniti bulacaksiniz. lutfen bu mektubu
isminizi yazarak veya kendi hazirladiginiz bir E-mektubu Gazeteye
iletiniz. Mektubun bir kopyasinida ayni zamanda News@turkishtimes.com
adresine gonderiniz. Bu Yaziya Dikkatimizi ceken Omer Komili beye ve LOS
ANGELES konsolosluguna candan Tesekkur ederiz.
Mektubun soguk kanli olarak yazilmasi onemlidir.
K. Buyukataman, II. Baskan
Turk Amerikan Dernekleri Federasyonu
E-MAIL GONDERME ADRESLERI:
editorial@independent.com
news@turkishtimes.com
BU MESAJ MUHTELIF LISTELERE POST EDILMEKTEDIR, IKI DEFA ALAN ARKADASLARDAN
OZUR DILERIZ. SIZDEN RICAMIZ POST EDILMEMIS LISTELERE, VE NEWS GURUPLARINA
POST ETMEKDE YARDIMCI OLMANIZDIR.
=========================================================
Article from The Independent dated Apr 2, 1998 p:14
Editor's e-mail: editorial@independent.com
Murder Will Out?
District Attorney Regrets Not Allowing Genocide Testimony at Murder
Trial
By David D. Minner, judge of the Madera County Municipal Court, who
was the District Attorney of Santa Barbara County in the early 1970s.
Twenty-five years ago Gourgen Mkrtich Yanikian, a 78 year old Armenian
immigrant and long time Santa Barbara resident, started what he called
a "New kind of war" with assassination of two Turkish diplomats.
Yanikian's war began January 27, 1973, in a cottage at the Biltmore
Hotel, where he had lured a consul general and vice-consul of the
Republic of Turkey. The diplomats expected to receive gifts of art
treasures for their government, but instead Yanikian pulled a Luger
pistol from a hollowed-out book and emptied it at them. He called the
reception desk, said he killed "two evils", then sat calmly on the
patio awaiting arrest.
Hours earlier, Yanikian had mailed a "call to action" to hundreds of
newspapers, magazines, and prominent Armenians throughout the world,
urging assassination of "all representatives of the so-called Turkish
government," and declaring, "I will be the first one as an example to
many more to follow." His stated purpose was "to demand justice" for
the 1915 massacre of two million Armenians.
The resulting terrorism lasted for more than a decade, claiming the
lives of at least 27 diplomats, their relatives and aids, and leaving
another 150 people dead or injured in more than dozen countries.
Gourgen Yanikan, trained as an engineer at the University of Moscow,
emigrated to the United States and had lived in Santa Barbara since
1956. The inspiration for his act was Soghoman Telerian, whose grave
is a centerpiece of Fresno's Masas Ararat cemetery. He had become a
world figure in 1921 when he tracked down Talaat Pasha, the hated
interior minister of the Ottoman Empire who had ordered his armed
forces "to destroy completely all Armenians living in Turkey."
Telerian shot and killed Talaat on a Berlin street, then used his
trial as an international showcase to expose the massacres. Telerian
was acquitted by a German court and became an Armenian hero.
Gourgen Yanikian hoped to follow Telerian's example in focusing world
attention on his trial, and Armenian newspapers predicted the trial
would be an "Armenian Nuremberg." The Turkish government had never
admitted the Armenian genocide, and Armenians hoped Yanikian's trial
would provide a vehicle for proving the massacres in a court of law,
while there were still surviving witnesses. I was the prosecutor at
the Yanikian's trial, and the Armenians' hopes were in my hands.
Yanikian was represented by attorneys James Lindsey of Santa Barbara
and Vasken Minassian of Beverly Hills. At a pretrial hearing,
Minassian gave me a book. It was The Cross and the Crescent, a
biography of Soghoman Telerian written by Lindy Avakian, a friend of
Yanikian from Madera. On the flyleaf, Avakian had written, "The
tragedy in Santa Barbara has brought destiny and God to your
doorstep," and he urged me to use the trial to "bring forth an
indictment against genocide." Minassian had added, "You stand to
become an immortal symbol of justice around the world."
Those words have haunted me to this day, and if I could turn back the
clock, I would proceed differently, whatever the consequences.
Yanikian's attorneys planned to prove the Armenian genocide through
proving the testimony of surviving eyewitnesses, opinions of noted
historians, and photographic evidence. But as Yanikian's prosecutor,
it was my duty to obtain a murder conviction, regardless of my
sympathy for his cause. Because I knew the jury might acquit Yanikian
if they heard survivors describe the ghastly details of the massacres,
I persuaded the judge, John Westwick, to exclude genocide evidence
from the case. And thereby I destroyed the hopes for an Armenian
Nuremberg.
Barred from presenting the witnesses they wished, Yanikian's lawyers
had only one means of proving the massacres, Yanikian himself.
Yanikian took the witness stand, accompanied by his friend and
interpreter, Santa Barbaran Aram Saroyan, the uncle of author William
Saroyan.
To a packed courtroom, Yanikian testified without objection for six
days, tracing the ill-fated history of the Armenian people. He told of
his 26 family members killed in the massacres, and he wept openly how,
at age eight, he watched in hiding as marauding Turks slit his
brother's throat. Finally, he said that in killing the Turkish
diplomats he was "destroying two evils" as representatives of the
government that had massacred his people.
The tragic flaw in Yanikian's defense, of course, was that his victims
no more represented the government responsible for the genocide than a
German diplomat today represents Hitler's Nazi Germany. The Ottoman
Empire, which perpetrated the massacres, was swept away by a
revolution that produced the modern Republic of Turkey, and Talaat
Pasha fled for his life.
The jury found Yanikian guilty of first degree murder, and, at age 79,
he was sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 1984, over the
objection of the Turkish government. Two months later, Gourgen
Yanikian was dead of a heart attack.
In death, Yanikian became a symbol to many Armenians of their
resentment toward the Turkish government for refusing to acknowledge
the Armenian genocide. Upon Yanikian's death, one of his attorneys,
William Paparian, said that he "is now a piece of Armenian history.
Every Armenian can tell you where he or she was when they heard what
Yanikian did." At Yanikian's graveside service in Los Angeles,
Paparian summed it up best when he said Yanikian "had done
unspeakable, but not unthinkable."
Today, the Republic of Turkey continues to deny the Armenian genocide,
despite the abundance of eyewitness accounts and photographic
evidence. Looking back, I regret that I did not allow the genocide to
be proven. Not because Yanikian should have gone free, but because
history's darkest chapters - its genocides - should be exposed, so
their horrors are less likely to be repeated.
Unfortunately, the Armenian genocide has never been fully exposed.
Thus Adolf Hitler could say in 1939, as he embarked upon a national
policy of genocide, "After all, who remembers today the extermination
of the Armenians?"
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sample mektup- Gonderilecek mektup ornegi
April 7, 1998
Letters to the Editor
Santa Barbara Independent
editorial@independent.com
IS JUDGE MINNER SOFT ON HATE CRIMES?
I have read Judge David D. Minner's article with shock, disbelief, and
sadness ("Murder Will Out?" , April 2). Is Judge Minner going soft on
hate crimes now? Or is it simply election year dirty politics?
Gourgen Yanikian, a self styled Armenian nationalist and an assassin,
committed the most terrible crime of all back in 1973. He planned and
cold bloodedly carried out the execution of two human beings, simply
because of their
nationality (they were Turkish). That qualifies his dastardly act as a
hate crime. He was convicted and sent to prison for life. Mr. David D.
Minner, the public prosecutor in this case, now speaks softly with a
strange voice of kindness about this ruthless assassin in his
ill-advised article .
If Judge Minner could read a little bit of history, not Armenian
propaganda, but true history, then he would learn that the Armenians
today are trying to dress up a civil war tragedy (started by their own
betrayal) as genocide.
If Judge Minner could read the newspapers since 1988, he would learn
that the Armenians have been ruthlessly carrying out the genocide of
Azerbaijani people (see, for example, February 1992 coverage of New York
Times on Armenian atrocities and the infamous " Khodjaly Genocide").
Different times and places, but the same Armenian atrocities,
ruthlessness, greed, and lies...
Does Judge Minner have any idea how the loved ones of the victims feel
when he writes kind words about assassin?
If Judge Minner is soft on crime, especially on the most repulsive kind
of crime: the hate crime, then he'd better hang his robe right now!
I think, California voters should take a closer look at concepts like
"Zero Tolerance" and "Three Strikes" ...
I think these concepts should apply to the judges, too...
Sincerely,
(ISMINIZ-YOUR NAME)
--..-..--..-..--..-..--..-..--
ilhan kassap
ikassap@ihlas.net.tr
icq#:10462969