"The Forgotten Armenian Genocide" by Hiroyoshi Segawa

The history of Armenia is not so well-known

to the world, Genocide is a tragedy that gives

 the key to understanding Armenian history.

Hiroyoshi Segawa

Professor Hiroyoshi Segawa is a lawyer by profession, who studied international law. After earning his doctoral degree, he spent a long time focusing on the subject of "Genocide prerequisites". About forty years ago, in the 1980s, while researching materials on genocides in the archives of the United Nations, the author found a material entitled "The Armenian Genocide of 1915".

Segawa started his professional studies without any prior knowledge of Armenia or the history of the Armenian people. According to the author, Japan at the time hardly had any publications on Armenia, much less the Armenian Genocide. 

Segawa states: "The more I read, the more I understood the importance of the topic, and although I was filled with horror while reading some of the material, the desire to research gradually grew stronger." Segawa focused on conducting extensive research on the topic. Segawa had various questions, such as why the Armenian Genocide is completely ignored in Japanese high school history lectures, but the Jewish Genocide is discussed in detail. According to him, neither the number of Armenian Genocide martyrs nor the age of the crime can justify the current condition.

In any case, fortunately, or unfortunately, after learning the true story, driven by a sense of responsibility towards humanity, Segawa decides to take upon himself the responsibility of enlightening the Japanese who were unaware of the tragedy that Armenians experienced.

The researcher has been through a long and challenging path during the two decades when studying the Armenian Genocide. In Japan, he was criticized by his colleagues, and some of them claimed that the research was pointless. Nevertheless, Segawa was deeply convinced that his research was important, he was persistently writing articles, publishing them in scientific journals and presenting them at conferences. For a long time, his works did not receive the attention of Japanese scientists, but the book "The Forgotten Armenian Genocide: Research on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide", published in 2004, became widely popular not only in Japan but also in Armenia.

The main purpose of reviewing the aforementioned book is to draw the attention of the professional audience to the valuable work done by the Japanese scholar on the Armenian Genocide, as about 18 years have passed since the book was translated and printed into Armenian, and there was a need to reevaluate it. The book expresses views that are important in terms of preventing and condemning genocides.

The book is a professional work, and the author tried to present the events to the Japanese reader in the most understandable language possible.

We consider it necessary to point out that Hiroyoshi Segawa is the first Japanese who deeply studied and presented his research in Japanese on the subject of the Armenian Genocide. It is praiseworthy that the author conducted the study impartially and named the facts as they are, that is, genocide, and analyzed the topic from a jurisprudential point of view.

According to the author, the massacre of Armenians committed by the government of the Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 should be classified as a crime of genocide, which is subject to punishment, based on the above-mentioned grounds defined by the second article of the "Genocide Convention" adopted on the prevention and punishment of genocide. Segawa also draws the reader's attention to the fourth article, where it is stated that regardless of whether the criminal, in accordance with the constitution of the given country, is an accountable political figure, an official servant or an individual, he is subject to punishment. Therefore, the leaders of the Young Turks party, the official servants, and the individuals who planned the Armenian Genocide must be punished for what happened.

The Armenian side responded to Segawa's study at the state level. In 2004, at the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Segawa's book was presented for the first time in the Japanese language, as the first work in Japan on the Armenian Genocide. In the same year, the professor was awarded a commemorative medal of the Prime Minister. It is important to note that the author was awarded the commemorative medal of the Armenian Genocide by the 2nd President of the Republic of Armenia for his great contribution to the field of genocide studies․

By researching and presenting data from numerous documents, Segawa clearly proved that the Armenian Genocide was organized, carefully planned, and realized. Through these operations, the Turkish army massacred Armenian officers, soldiers, leaders and men older than 15 years of age. Therefore, only women, children, elder people and the sick among the Armenians were left in the territory of Turkey, who did not pose a great danger.

The fact that this genocide of the early 20th century was silenced in the world, that the superpowers turned a deaf ear to the voices of humanists, led to the execution of the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War (Holocaust), which is considered one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.

Segawa notes: "Our generation, living in the 21st century, for not preventing the Armenian Genocide, for not cutting its diseased roots from the very beginning, bearing the responsibility of the international community, should directly appeal to the current Turkish government with the demand to accept the fact of the crime of genocide, and indirectly appeal to the UN with a proposal to plan a project to raise the level of knowledge about human rights at inter-state and intra-state platforms, so that a clear conviction emerges at those platforms that when seeing the signs of ethnic cleansing, humanitarian intervention should be initiated, and it cannot be refused. After those preconditions, perhaps it will be possible to atone for the sins before the Armenians, Jews and many other peoples who have gone through the tragedy."

In his work, Professor Segawa subtly notes: "It would not be an exaggeration to say that the history of Armenians was a series of tragedies. Especially since the day when Armenians accepted Christianity as the state religion 1700 years ago. Because of their faith, they became the target of frequent attacks by various invaders and foreign rulers.”

Read more details in “Scientific Artsakh” Journal #1, 2023 (16th issue).

Anna Vardanyan, PhD in Economics, Armenian State University of Economics (ASUE), Finance and International Economic Relations Faculties, japanologist.

Avetik Harutyunyan, PhD in Law, Associate Professor, French University in Armenia (UFAR).