Turks Act to Kill Bill Adding Discussion of Armenian Genocide to School Studies

A Southern California group of Turkish-Americans has launched a campaign to defeat proposed legislation that would have California schoolchildren learn about the Armenian genocide during World War I.

The American-Turkish Assn. of Southern California and its parent national organization, the Assembly of Turkish-Armenian Assns., contend in advertisements placed recently in Northern and Southern California newspapers that the new curriculum is being produced under political pressure from the office of Gov. George Deukmejian, who is of Armenian descent.

Curriculum planners, “under the political pressure of the governor’s office and a hate-motivated lobby of Armenian extremists, are ramming through a Human Rights and Genocide Studies Program that will turn classrooms into battlegrounds for ancient blood feuds,” says one of the ads, which ran in an Orange County newspaper last weekend.

A spokesman for the governor said Deukmejian had not exerted any pressure to bring about the bill.

At the center of the controversy is legislation introduced by Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles). It would add the Armenian genocide in Turkey during World War I and the internment of Japanese-Americans in the United States during World War II to the subjects addressed by the model state curriculum concerning genocide and human rights violations, a program that was established by the Legislature two years ago.

The bill has been approved by the Assembly and was passed, after being amended, on a 10-0 vote Wednesday by the state Senate Appropriations Committee. It now heads to the Senate floor.

Armenians and Turks for years have argued bitterly about the deaths of Armenians in Turkey. Many historians agree that there was a genocide of Armenians in the obscure reaches of eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1918. Turkey denies that a genocide occurred and says that Armenians, Turks, Muslims and Christians alike died during a civil war.

Spokesmen for Turkish-American groups said the proposed legislation will result in a one-sided version of the historical events. Children will be taught hate, not facts, said Savas Mirci, a board member of the American-Turkish Assn. of Southern California, based in Irvine.

Ads placed by Mirci’s group--but signed by the Assembly of Turkish-American Assns.--in the Sacramento Bee and the Orange County Register contend that the educational program will teach that the wartime tragedies were a genocide, “turning a deaf ear to what we Turkish-Americans and over 60 highly regarded American academicians specializing in Turkic studies have to say about their reckless labeling of Turks.”

“Far from teaching respect for human rights,” the advertisement said, the bill “will fan the flames of hatred.”

A spokesman for the governor said Deukmejian had no part in drafting the legislation. Roos--hardly known as an ally of the Republican governor--did not consult Deukmejian’s office before introducing the bill, Deukmejian press secretary Kevin Brett said. Brett said the governor “supports the concept” of the bill but disagrees with some of the particulars.