Vahakn Dadrian to speak on Armenian Genocide “second phase” perpetrator

PanARMENIAN.Net - Prof. Vahakn Dadrian will present a lecture in honor of Luther and Anne Eskijian, on Sunday, April 1 at 4 pm at the Ararat-Eskijian Museum, in the Sheen (Geovkalayjian) Memorial Chapel, Mission Hills, CA, Asbarez reports.

The lecture is sponsored by the Ararat-Eskijian Museum and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR). There will be a musical program by Ani String Quartet and a reception and book signing to follow in the Ararat-Eskijian Museum.

Salih Zeki, known as Zeki Bey, was born in the city of Samsun on the Black Sea in 1879. By the early 1900s he had entered the Ottoman Civil Service and began to rise through the ranks: kaymakam (county executive) of Tirebolu (1906), Vakfıkebir (1909), Ünye (1910), Bafra (1911), Alaşehir (1912), İncesu (1914), and Develi (1915). Serving in this last post, near Kay-seri/Gesaria, at the outset of the Armenian Genocide, he earned a reputation for extreme cruelty and continued to receive promotions for his work.

In summer 1916 Zeki was appointed mutasarrif (deputy governor) of Deir Zor and given the task that his predecessor, Ali Suat Bey, had refused: the liquidation of the vast number of Armenian refugees in the region. Zeki unleashed his genocidal fury against those deportee convoys that had arrived there as destitute survivors of the then-raging empire-wide deportations and massacres of the Armenian people. As such, Zeki is one of the principal perpetrators of this “second phase” of the Armenian Genocide.

Prof. Vahakn Dadrian is currently the Director of Research at the Zoryan Institute and a pioneer in the fields of genocide theory and comparative genocide. Dadrian is the author of several books, including The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, Warrant for Genocide, and the recently-published Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials (co-authored with Taner Akçam), as well as more than seventy articles in numerous languages around the world. He is the recipient of many honors and awards, including the Khorenatsi Medal, Armenia’s highest cultural award. He was inducted into the ranks of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia in 1998.