41220 - Canada and the Genocide of the Pontians

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Vicky Baklessi

With the rejection by the Senate of Canada of the proposals for the recognition of the Genocide of Pontians, we must think rationally of the difficulties that exist. There is definitively Turkey’s influence but now Skopje’s too. There definitely isn’t practical support on behalf of formal Greece since she still wonders, as a government, if we should be speaking about genocide. But the problem is to work in a more structural and strategic manner. In this framework we must exploit to the fullest the archives of Lemkin who coined the word genocide, which was recognized formally by the United Nations on December 9th 1948, because these prove that he used, as example, the facts of Pontus in order to explain the term genocide. Also the Greeks of Pontus are indigenous peoples and have the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples that were voted by the United Nations in 2007. And we should be regarding the genocide of the Greeks of Pontus in a unified framework which consists of the Trinity of Genocides which concerns the Armenians, the Assyrians and the Greeks. Because it is in this manner, that we achieved the recognition in Sweden in 2010 but also the states of Australia and of America. So instead of talking only about obstructions, let us become more robust in order to defend more effectively the innocents which became victims.