The British Government recognised the genocide of Armenians as early as 1916, when the British Parliament reported the systematic destruction of Armenians in a special report. Since then, the archives of Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy, Vatican, France and others have yielded further evidence of the systematic and deliberate nature of what took place in the Ottoman Empire in 1915/16.
The attitude towards the Armenian genocide prior to World War II can be summed up by two British politicians of particular note.
"There was not a British statesman of any party, who did not have it in mind that if we succeeded in defeating this inhuman Empire, our essential condition of the peace we should impose was the redemption of the Armenian valleys for ever from the bloody misrule with which they had been stained by the infamies of the Turks."
(David Lloyd George quoted in "Paris 1919" by Margaret MacMillan)
"As for Turkish atrocities: .....massacring uncounted thousands of helpless
Armenians, men, women, and children together, whole districts blotted out in
one administrative holocaust, these were beyond human redress."
(Winston Churchill, "The World Crisis, vol. 5: Aftermath"published in 1929, page 157)
Yet the further away from the Armenian Genocide the politicians got, so the Western power's priorities changed, and oil in the Middle East proved very influential in negotiations. Turkey’s powerful geopolitical position has enabled her to persuade successive British Governments, (along with other powerhouse nations such as the United States and Israel) to assist in the denial of the crime that these two war-time Prime Ministers of high standing, recognized. Since the crime of the Nazi imposed Holocaust was perpetrated, the scale of that horrific crime has unwittingly assisted these powers in blinding the world to the genocide of the Armenians.
British Armenians have been resolute in their request that the government recognize the crimes that took place in 1915, the crime that Raphael Lemkin used as a guide to define his concept of ‘genocide’. As time has passed, this request has gained volume thanks in part to ournalists such as Robert Fisk who have exposed the British Government's censure of the Armenian Genocide. However, as long as Incilirk air base in Turkey is made available for exerting authority over certain areas of the Middle East, the British Government will continue with this deception. Conversely, the Gomidas Institute (UK) is committed to highlighting the truth of the Armenian Genocide through publications and educational programs, and we would like your help. Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust has suggested that denial of genocide serves to murder the victims a second time. Sadly the British Government, amongst others, continues to hold the Armenians still whilst the Turkish Government continues to assault the memory of those who perished in 1915.
