Canadian Asia Minor Educational Organization (CAMEO) was created in 2010 in response to the observed striking lack of information, knowledge and research on the plight of the Ottoman Greeks at the turn of the last century.  With the Hellenic diasporas of Asia Minor now firmly entrenched and established in the West, after the shock and the horror that was the “Great Catastrophe,” CAMEO believes it is incumbent on our generation to educate not only our own community but the wider community in which we now live in as to how a civilization of over 3,000 years old came to an abrupt end.

Throughout the period of 1908 – 1923, the Ottoman Empire experienced profound transformation both in its territorial integrity and in the ethnic composition of its citizens.  The Ottoman Empire’s widespread persecution of its Christian population constituted a form of genocide, the present day term for an attempt to destroy a national, ethnic or religious group.  Ottoman soldiers and the irregular militias subjected hundreds of thousands of Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians to a deliberate and systematic campaign of massacre, torture, abduction, deportation and impoverishment and cultural and ethnic destruction with the stated aim of having a Turkey for the Turks.  Despite the contravention of international law, the international community has been slow to recognize the Greek, Armenian and Assyrian experience as a form of genocide and the question we must ask is why.

CAMEO or the Canadian Asia Minor Educational Organization is an organization whose primary goal is to promote educational activities related to the history of Hellenism in Asia Minor and Pontus.  To that end, its stated purposes can be summarized as follows:

1.  To promote the collection, preservation and organization of archival and other materials related to Hellenism in Asia Minor and Pontus.

2.  To promote the documentation of the Great Catastrophe in Asia Minor, the genocide and the removal of the Greek population from all of Asia Minor.

3.  To disseminate knowledge, both historical and contemporary about Asia Minor by planning, sponsoring and participating in public lectures and events.

4.  To create a center devoted to research on Hellenism in Asia Minor and Pontus and the communities established throughout the world by Greeks from Asia Minor.

5.  To advocate for the advancement of human rights issues around the world.

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