Dennis Brutus, supporter of reparations to Armenians, passed away

January 8, 2010 - 13:53 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Dennis Brutus was a world-renowned human rights activist who had a major role in the struggle against Apartheid in his native South Africa and later in various struggles for life and justice around the globe. He passed away on Dec. 26, 2009, in Cape Town.

He was instrumental in organizing the 1999 protests of the WTO in Seattle, a major figure in the World Social Forum seeking an alternative global political and economic order, and a leader of the emerging global reparations movement for apartheid, slavery, mass rape, genocide, corporate abuse, and environmental damage.

He was the co-chair of the committee that organized the 2005 Global Reparations Symposium at Worcester State College, which featured discussions of reparations for South African Apartheid, US Slavery and Jim Crow, the Comfort Women System by Japan, Native American genocides and dispossessions, and the Armenian Genocide.

He became a supporter of the Armenian right to reparation and invited panelists to submit their symposium papers for a forthcoming issue of the Armenian Review on reparations, Armenian Weekly reported.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.