Armenian Genocide Developments in Turkey‏

The New York Times
Published: March 8, 2009

ISTANBUL ' For Turkey, the number should have been a bombshell.
Nearly a Million Genocide Victims, Covered in a Cloak of Amnesia

Ottoman Armenians are marched to a prison by armed Turkish soldiers in
April 1915. About 972,000 Armenians disappeared from population
records in 1915 and 1916.

Times Topics: Armenian GenocideAccording to a long-hidden document
that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, 972,000
Ottoman Armenians disappeared from official population records from
1915 through 1916.

In Turkey, any discussion of what happened to the Ottoman Armenians
can bring a storm of public outrage. But since its publication in a
book in January, the number ' and its Ottoman source ' has gone
virtually unmentioned. Newspapers hardly wrote about it. Television
shows have not discussed it.

`Nothing,' said Murat Bardakci, the Turkish author and columnist who
compiled the book.

The silence can mean only one thing, he said: `My numbers are too high
for ordinary people. Maybe people aren't ready to talk about it yet.'

For generations, most Turks knew nothing of the details of the
Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1918, when more than a million Armenians
were killed as the Ottoman Turk government purged the
population. Turkey locked the ugliest parts of its past out of sight,
Soviet-style, keeping any mention of the events out of schoolbooks and
official narratives in an aggressive campaign of forgetting.

But in the past 10 years, as civil society has flourished here, some
parts of Turkish society are now openly questioning the state's
version of events. In December, a group of intellectuals circulated a
petition that apologized for the denial of the massacres. Some 29,000
people have signed it.

With his book, `The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha,' Mr. Bardakci
(pronounced bard-AK-chuh) has become, rather unwillingly, part of this
ferment. The book is a collection of documents and records that once
belonged to Mehmed Talat, known as Talat Pasha, the primary architect
of the Armenian deportations.

The documents, given to Mr. Bardakci by Mr. Talat's widow, Hayriye,
before she died in 1983, include lists of population figures. Before
1915, 1,256,000 Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire, according to
the documents. The number plunged to 284,157 two years later,
Mr. Bardakci said.

To the untrained ear, it is simply a sad statistic. But anyone
familiar with the issue knows the numbers are in fierce
dispute. Turkey has never acknowledged a specific number of deportees
or deaths. On Sunday, Turkey's foreign minister warned that President
Obama might set back relations if he recognized the massacre of
Armenians as genocide before his visit to Turkey next month.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire was bloody, the Turkish argument
goes, and those who died were victims of that chaos.

Mr. Bardakci subscribes to that view. The figures, he said, do not
indicate the number of dead, only a result of the decline in the
Armenian population after deportation. He strongly disagrees that the
massacres amounted to a genocide, and he says Turkey was obliged to
take action against Armenians because they were openly supporting
Russia in its war against the Ottoman Empire.

`It was not a Nazi policy or a Holocaust,' he said. `These were very
dark times. It was a very difficult decision. But deportation was the
outcome of some very bloody events. It was necessary for the
government to deport the Armenian population.'

This argument is rejected by most scholars, who believe that the small
number of Armenian rebels were not a serious threat to the Ottoman
Empire, and that the policy was more the product of the perception
that the Armenians, non-Muslims and therefore considered
untrustworthy, were a problem population.

Hilmar Kaiser, a historian and expert on the Armenian genocide, said
the records published in the book were conclusive proof from the
Ottoman authority itself that it had pursued a calculated policy to
eliminate the Armenians. `You have suddenly on one page confirmation
of the numbers,' he said. `It was like someone hit you over the head
with a club.'

Mr. Kaiser said the before and after figures amounted to `a death
record.'

`There is no other way of viewing this document,' he said. `You can't
just hide a million people.'

Other scholars said that the number was a useful addition to the
historical record, but that it did not introduce a new version of
events.

`This corroborates what we already knew,' said Donald Bloxham, the
author of `The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism and
the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians.'

Mr. Bardakci is a history buff who learned to read and write Ottoman
script from his grandmother, allowing him to navigate Turkey's written
past, something that most Turks are unable to do. He plays the tanbur,
a traditional string instrument. His grandfather was a member of the
same political party of Mr. Talat, and his family knew many of the
important political figures in Turkey's founding.

Though he clearly wanted the numbers to be known, he stubbornly
refuses to interpret them. He offers no analysis in the book, and
aside from an interview with Mr. Talat's widow, there is virtually no
text beside the original documents.

`I didn't want to interpret,' he said. `I want the reader to decide.'

The best way to do that, he argues, is by using cold, hard facts,
which can cut through the layers of emotional rhetoric that have
clouded the issue for years.

`I believe we need documents in Turkey,' he said. `This is the most
important.'

But some of the keenest observers of Turkish society said the silence
was a sign of just how taboo the topic still was. `The importance of
the book is obvious from the fact that no paper except Milliyet has
written a single line about it,' wrote Murat Belge, a Turkish
academic, in a January column in the liberal daily newspaper Taraf.

Still, it is a measure of Turkey's democratic maturity that the book
was published here at all. Mr. Bardakci said he had held the documents
for so long ' 27 years ' because he was waiting for Turkey to reach
the point when their publication would not cause a frenzy.

Even the state now feels the need to defend itself. Last summer, a
propaganda film about the Armenians made by Turkey's military was
distributed to primary schools. After a public outcry, it was stopped.

`I could never have published this book 10 years ago,' Mr. Bardakci
said. `I would have been called a traitor.'

He added, `The mentality has changed.'

Agence France Presse, France
March 8 2009
Turkey warn Obama against 'genocide' recognition

ANKARA (AFP) ' Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said Sunday there
was a "risk" that US President Barack Obama would recognise the
massacre of Armenians a century ago as genocide.

But Babacan said in an interview with the NTV television channel that
such a move would only impede efforts to reconcile Turkey and Armenia.

Obama, who is expected to visit Turkey in April, said several times
during his election campaign that he would recognise the 1915-1917
massacres under the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

The United States has previously condemned the killings while not
calling them genocide to avoid tensions with Turkey, a NATO member and
key Middle East ally.

"I still see a risk," Babacan said. "Mr Obama made the promise five
times in a row."

He added however that "The new American administration understands
Turkey's sensibilities better today" and called on the United States
not to interfere in the dispute between the neighbours.

"It would not be rational for a third country to take a position on
this topic. A bad step by the United States would only worsen the
process" of reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey.

The two countries offer starkly different accounts of the events, and
the dispute has been a major obstacle in relations between Ankara and
Yerevan.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million people died between 1915 and 1917 in
orchestrated killings as the Ottoman Empire fell apart. More than 20
countries have recognised the killings as genocide.

Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that between 300,000 and
500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when
Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided
with invading Russian troops.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced during a visit to
Ankara on Saturday that Obama would visit Turkey "within the next
month or so". The visit is expected in April.
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