Armenian News... A Topalian
Armenians in Ireland mark 100th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide by Turkey in Dublin 24th April
BRITISH LAWYER VIEWS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AS A CRIME
THAT WAS METHODICALLY ORGANIZED
20 May, 2015
YEREVAN, 20 MAY, ARMENPRESS. "The most classic" example of a death
march was set during the Armenian Genocide that took place in the
Ottoman Empire in 1915. As "Armenpress" reports, this is what Professor
of Law at Middlesex University of London and Dean of the Law Department
Joshua Castellino wrote in his article released in the Encyclopedia of
Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. The part of his article about
the Armenian Genocide has been included in a special annex published
by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia.
"The historical facts show that the death march was perpetrated
methodically and in a coordinated manner. It was an overtly planned
genocide that the Turks managed to perpetrate through different
measures, including atrocious killings, slowing starving people
to death and depriving them of water and death caused by injuries
and fatigue. It is assumed that this genocide was the cause of the
murder of 1.5 million Armenians. Even though it is hard to specify
the number of people who disappeared during the death march, the
conditions under which the exiled Armenians died, what happened turns
into one of the episodes in the history of mankind, even with the
number of marches that are unique in their brutality and savageness,"
mentioned Joshua Castellino.
20 May, 2015
YEREVAN, 20 MAY, ARMENPRESS. "The most classic" example of a death
march was set during the Armenian Genocide that took place in the
Ottoman Empire in 1915. As "Armenpress" reports, this is what Professor
of Law at Middlesex University of London and Dean of the Law Department
Joshua Castellino wrote in his article released in the Encyclopedia of
Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. The part of his article about
the Armenian Genocide has been included in a special annex published
by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia.
"The historical facts show that the death march was perpetrated
methodically and in a coordinated manner. It was an overtly planned
genocide that the Turks managed to perpetrate through different
measures, including atrocious killings, slowing starving people
to death and depriving them of water and death caused by injuries
and fatigue. It is assumed that this genocide was the cause of the
murder of 1.5 million Armenians. Even though it is hard to specify
the number of people who disappeared during the death march, the
conditions under which the exiled Armenians died, what happened turns
into one of the episodes in the history of mankind, even with the
number of marches that are unique in their brutality and savageness,"
mentioned Joshua Castellino.
armenpress.am
BELGIUM RECONFIRMS ITS POSITION ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
RECOGNITION
22 May, 2015
YEREVAN, MAY 22, ARMENPRESS: The Prime Minister of Belgium Charles
Michel reconfirmed the position of the official Brussels in the
Armenian Genocide recognition issue. Armenpress reports that Michel
stated about it in the interview to La Libre.
"Our position on the issue has always been clear. What happened with
Armenians was Genocide and no other opinion can exist in this issue",
- told the Prime Minister of Belgium.
RFE/RL Report
22 May, 2015
YEREVAN, MAY 22, ARMENPRESS: The Prime Minister of Belgium Charles
Michel reconfirmed the position of the official Brussels in the
Armenian Genocide recognition issue. Armenpress reports that Michel
stated about it in the interview to La Libre.
"Our position on the issue has always been clear. What happened with
Armenians was Genocide and no other opinion can exist in this issue",
- told the Prime Minister of Belgium.
RFE/RL Report
Sarkisian Lauds Germany Over Armenian Genocide Recognition
Emil Danielyan
23.05.2015
President Serzh Sarkisian thanked Germany's leaders for recognizing
the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey when he met with Chancellor
Angela Merkel on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Riga late
on Thursday.
In a statement, Sarkisian's office said the two discussed Armenia's
relations with the EU and Germany in particular as well as
international efforts to broker a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. It said they also touched upon recent officials ceremonies
around the world, including in Berlin, that marked the 100th
anniversary of the start of the Armenian massacres in the Ottoman
Empire.
"President Serzh Sarkisian expressed gratitude to Germany's
authorities for their position on the condemnation of the Armenian
genocide," added the statement.
The praise seemed primarily addressed to Germany's largely ceremonial
President Joachim Gauck, who described the slaughter of some 1.5
million Armenians as genocide during an April 23 memorial service in
Berlin.
Germany -- German President Joachim Gauck makes a speech during an
Ecumenical service marking the 100th anniversary of the mass killings
of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces, at the cathedral
in Berlin, April 23, 2015
Significantly, Gauck also suggested that Germany, Ottoman Turkey's
World War One ally, itself may bear some of the blame for the
tragedy. He said German armed forces were involved in planning and
even implementing mass deportations of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian
subjects.
The Berlin ceremony, the first of its kind, came just days after
Merkel's coalition government said it no longer opposes the use of the
word "genocide" with regard to the Armenian massacres. Successive
German governments have been reluctant to apply the term for fear of
upsetting Ankara and the 3.5 million people in Germany who are Turkish
nationals or of Turkish origin.
Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, debated and effectively approved
a corresponding genocide resolution on April 24. "What happened in the
middle of the First World War in the Ottoman Empire under the eyes of
the world was a genocide," Bundestag speaker Norbert Lammert, a member
of Merkel's Chritsian Democratic Union party, told fellow lawmakers.
Still, the Bundestag postponed a vote on the resolution, meaning that
its de facto recognition of the Armenian genocide has not been
formalized yet. There have been suggestions that the German government
wants to further delay the vote or water down the resolution because
of vehement Turkish protests.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reportedly phoned Merkel on
April 21, asking her to persuade German lawmakers not to "offend
Turkey."
Gauck's ensuing emphatic remarks on the sensitive subject prompted a
strong condemnation from the Turkish Foreign Ministry. A ministry
statement said the German president, a former Protestant pastor, has
no "right to attribute to the Turkish people a crime which they have
not committed."
Emil Danielyan
23.05.2015
President Serzh Sarkisian thanked Germany's leaders for recognizing
the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey when he met with Chancellor
Angela Merkel on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Riga late
on Thursday.
In a statement, Sarkisian's office said the two discussed Armenia's
relations with the EU and Germany in particular as well as
international efforts to broker a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. It said they also touched upon recent officials ceremonies
around the world, including in Berlin, that marked the 100th
anniversary of the start of the Armenian massacres in the Ottoman
Empire.
"President Serzh Sarkisian expressed gratitude to Germany's
authorities for their position on the condemnation of the Armenian
genocide," added the statement.
The praise seemed primarily addressed to Germany's largely ceremonial
President Joachim Gauck, who described the slaughter of some 1.5
million Armenians as genocide during an April 23 memorial service in
Berlin.
Germany -- German President Joachim Gauck makes a speech during an
Ecumenical service marking the 100th anniversary of the mass killings
of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces, at the cathedral
in Berlin, April 23, 2015
Significantly, Gauck also suggested that Germany, Ottoman Turkey's
World War One ally, itself may bear some of the blame for the
tragedy. He said German armed forces were involved in planning and
even implementing mass deportations of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian
subjects.
The Berlin ceremony, the first of its kind, came just days after
Merkel's coalition government said it no longer opposes the use of the
word "genocide" with regard to the Armenian massacres. Successive
German governments have been reluctant to apply the term for fear of
upsetting Ankara and the 3.5 million people in Germany who are Turkish
nationals or of Turkish origin.
Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, debated and effectively approved
a corresponding genocide resolution on April 24. "What happened in the
middle of the First World War in the Ottoman Empire under the eyes of
the world was a genocide," Bundestag speaker Norbert Lammert, a member
of Merkel's Chritsian Democratic Union party, told fellow lawmakers.
Still, the Bundestag postponed a vote on the resolution, meaning that
its de facto recognition of the Armenian genocide has not been
formalized yet. There have been suggestions that the German government
wants to further delay the vote or water down the resolution because
of vehement Turkish protests.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reportedly phoned Merkel on
April 21, asking her to persuade German lawmakers not to "offend
Turkey."
Gauck's ensuing emphatic remarks on the sensitive subject prompted a
strong condemnation from the Turkish Foreign Ministry. A ministry
statement said the German president, a former Protestant pastor, has
no "right to attribute to the Turkish people a crime which they have
not committed."
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LAWSUIT: CHURCH TAKES LEGAL ACTION
AGAINST TURKEY TO RECLAIM ANCIENT HEADQUARTERS
By Lora Moftah
International Business Times
May 20, 2015
The worldwide leader of the Armenian Church, Catholicos Aram I, has
spoken out about a lawsuit filed by the church in Turkey to recover
Armenian properties seized during the genocide. Aram I is pictured
above (center) during a Mass on the 100th anniversary of the start of
the Armenian mass killings, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican,
April 12, 2015. Reuters/Tony Gentile
The Armenian Church's ongoing legal effort to recover its ancient
headquarters in Turkey is the first step in a larger campaign to
reclaim all Armenian property seized by Ottoman Turks during the
genocide, the worldwide leader of the church said this week. Aram I,
the Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia, also warned in an interview
with the New York Times that if Turkish authorities rejected a lawsuit
filed by the church it would "deepen the divide" between Turkey and
the Armenian diaspora.
The religious figure has been a leading proponent of an international
campaign to promote recognition of the early-20th-century mass
killings of 1.5 million Armenians as a genocide, a description the
Turkish government rejects. And now part of the effort to put pressure
on Ankara includes a push for reparations to the Armenian community,
including the reclamation of Armenian properties seized by the Ottoman
Empire during the course of the genocide.
Seeking the return of the church's historic headquarters in Turkey's
Adana Province "is the first legal step," Aram I said. "That will be
followed by our claim to return all the churches, the monasteries, the
church-related properties and, finally, the individual properties. We
should move step by step."
The church's headquarters in Adana dates to 1293 and was among the
tens of thousands of Armenian properties taken over and plundered by
the Ottoman Turks in the last days of the empire, the Times reported.
While the church no longer has the deeds to the significant historical
site or other Armenian properties, Aram I has maintained that "the
ownership is clear." "They are Armenian. Nobody can question the
ownership or identity or history of those properties," he said.
The lawsuit, filed in Turkey's Constitutional Court last month
just days after the centennial of the start of the genocide, is an
unprecedented step by the Armenian Church to use the Turkish legal
system to recover the property. There are already indications that
the legal proceedings might not yield the outcome church leaders are
seeking. The mayor of Kozan, the town where the church's historic
headquarters is located, has rejected the idea of restoring the site
to Armenian ownership, saying that "not even an iota of land is to
be handed over to anyone."
The lead lawyer in the suit has said, however, that if Turkish courts
reject the case, he is planning to take it to the European Court of
Human Rights, which requires that all domestic remedies be exhausted
before hearing cases.
International Business Times
May 20, 2015
The worldwide leader of the Armenian Church, Catholicos Aram I, has
spoken out about a lawsuit filed by the church in Turkey to recover
Armenian properties seized during the genocide. Aram I is pictured
above (center) during a Mass on the 100th anniversary of the start of
the Armenian mass killings, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican,
April 12, 2015. Reuters/Tony Gentile
The Armenian Church's ongoing legal effort to recover its ancient
headquarters in Turkey is the first step in a larger campaign to
reclaim all Armenian property seized by Ottoman Turks during the
genocide, the worldwide leader of the church said this week. Aram I,
the Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia, also warned in an interview
with the New York Times that if Turkish authorities rejected a lawsuit
filed by the church it would "deepen the divide" between Turkey and
the Armenian diaspora.
The religious figure has been a leading proponent of an international
campaign to promote recognition of the early-20th-century mass
killings of 1.5 million Armenians as a genocide, a description the
Turkish government rejects. And now part of the effort to put pressure
on Ankara includes a push for reparations to the Armenian community,
including the reclamation of Armenian properties seized by the Ottoman
Empire during the course of the genocide.
Seeking the return of the church's historic headquarters in Turkey's
Adana Province "is the first legal step," Aram I said. "That will be
followed by our claim to return all the churches, the monasteries, the
church-related properties and, finally, the individual properties. We
should move step by step."
The church's headquarters in Adana dates to 1293 and was among the
tens of thousands of Armenian properties taken over and plundered by
the Ottoman Turks in the last days of the empire, the Times reported.
While the church no longer has the deeds to the significant historical
site or other Armenian properties, Aram I has maintained that "the
ownership is clear." "They are Armenian. Nobody can question the
ownership or identity or history of those properties," he said.
The lawsuit, filed in Turkey's Constitutional Court last month
just days after the centennial of the start of the genocide, is an
unprecedented step by the Armenian Church to use the Turkish legal
system to recover the property. There are already indications that
the legal proceedings might not yield the outcome church leaders are
seeking. The mayor of Kozan, the town where the church's historic
headquarters is located, has rejected the idea of restoring the site
to Armenian ownership, saying that "not even an iota of land is to
be handed over to anyone."
The lead lawyer in the suit has said, however, that if Turkish courts
reject the case, he is planning to take it to the European Court of
Human Rights, which requires that all domestic remedies be exhausted
before hearing cases.
GENOCIDE RECOGNITION NOT A JOB FOR POLITICIANS
Jewish Chronicle
May 21 2015
Analysis By Anshel Pfeffer,
Yuli Edelstein is Benjamin Netanyahu's hand-picked choice as speaker of
the Knesset. For the past two years, he has run the Israeli parliament
in accordance with the prime minister's often conflicting wishes, not
sprung any surprises and, where needed, bent procedure to accommodate
his agenda.
That's why Mr Netanyahu unceremoniously dumped the previous speaker,
now President Reuven Rivlin. It is inconceivable that Mr Edelstein's
call last week to recognise the murder of 1.5 million Armenians at the
hands of the Turkish army, 100 years ago during the First World War,
was done without the prime minister's knowledge and blessing.
The Speaker's statement last Tuesday was powerful but also carefully
calibrated.
"It's no secret," he said, "that the state of Israel has so far taken
an ambivalent stand regarding the genocide of the Armenian people."
He cited "a thicket of circumstances, diplomatic and others, which
made the official Israeli position too hesitant, too restrained". But
in his call to "re-examine thoroughly" that position, he did not
actually make a judgment of his own.
And, despite his own senior position, effectively second to the
president in the Israeli pecking order, his words do not reflect
government policy, only his personal views. If he had been a minister,
it would be different, but that is exactly why he was the one saying
those words.
Israel is not about to formally recognise the Armenian genocide. In the
past, it was the strategic relationship with Turkey which precluded
that. Ties with Erdogan's Turkey are now rock bottom, but instead it
is Israel's proximity to Armenia's main rival, Azerbaijan - supplier
of much of Israel's oil needs, customer for its arms and important
ally on Iran's border - that puts a formal recognition out of question.
On the other hand, there is a growing push inside and outside Israel
for the country to join other Western countries in recognising
the genocide. There is also, of course, a willingness to anger the
Turkish government.
Speaker Edelstein is fulfilling a necessary role for Israeli
diplomacy - allowing the nation to nearly recognise the Armenian
tragedy for what it was without actually tying down the government
to any official position.
Perhaps this is the best solution. History will always be politicised
and it would be a positive thing for governments to keep out of these
debates. Israel would be better off if its leaders and diplomats
focused on more immediate matters and left the historical definitions
to academics.
Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust remembrance authority, is already
cooperating with the genocide memorial museum in Yerevan, as it should
be. It would be best if Speaker Edelstein's words drew a line under
the issue as far as the Israeli government is concerned.
100 YEARS OF SILENCE
Huffington Post
May 20 2015
by Thea Halo, Author of Not Even My Name
In the struggle between denial and silence, silence wins hands
Jewish Chronicle
May 21 2015
Analysis By Anshel Pfeffer,
Yuli Edelstein is Benjamin Netanyahu's hand-picked choice as speaker of
the Knesset. For the past two years, he has run the Israeli parliament
in accordance with the prime minister's often conflicting wishes, not
sprung any surprises and, where needed, bent procedure to accommodate
his agenda.
That's why Mr Netanyahu unceremoniously dumped the previous speaker,
now President Reuven Rivlin. It is inconceivable that Mr Edelstein's
call last week to recognise the murder of 1.5 million Armenians at the
hands of the Turkish army, 100 years ago during the First World War,
was done without the prime minister's knowledge and blessing.
The Speaker's statement last Tuesday was powerful but also carefully
calibrated.
"It's no secret," he said, "that the state of Israel has so far taken
an ambivalent stand regarding the genocide of the Armenian people."
He cited "a thicket of circumstances, diplomatic and others, which
made the official Israeli position too hesitant, too restrained". But
in his call to "re-examine thoroughly" that position, he did not
actually make a judgment of his own.
And, despite his own senior position, effectively second to the
president in the Israeli pecking order, his words do not reflect
government policy, only his personal views. If he had been a minister,
it would be different, but that is exactly why he was the one saying
those words.
Israel is not about to formally recognise the Armenian genocide. In the
past, it was the strategic relationship with Turkey which precluded
that. Ties with Erdogan's Turkey are now rock bottom, but instead it
is Israel's proximity to Armenia's main rival, Azerbaijan - supplier
of much of Israel's oil needs, customer for its arms and important
ally on Iran's border - that puts a formal recognition out of question.
On the other hand, there is a growing push inside and outside Israel
for the country to join other Western countries in recognising
the genocide. There is also, of course, a willingness to anger the
Turkish government.
Speaker Edelstein is fulfilling a necessary role for Israeli
diplomacy - allowing the nation to nearly recognise the Armenian
tragedy for what it was without actually tying down the government
to any official position.
Perhaps this is the best solution. History will always be politicised
and it would be a positive thing for governments to keep out of these
debates. Israel would be better off if its leaders and diplomats
focused on more immediate matters and left the historical definitions
to academics.
Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust remembrance authority, is already
cooperating with the genocide memorial museum in Yerevan, as it should
be. It would be best if Speaker Edelstein's words drew a line under
the issue as far as the Israeli government is concerned.
100 YEARS OF SILENCE
Huffington Post
May 20 2015
by Thea Halo, Author of Not Even My Name
In the struggle between denial and silence, silence wins hands
down.
That is, silence wins out over denial if the genocide of a people is
to be complete. For almost 100 years, Pontic Greeks have mourned the
loss of the 353,000 fathers, mothers, grandparents, children, friends
and community members who were slaughtered outright, or who died
agonizing deaths on long death marches to expulsion from 1916 to 1923.
My mother was among them. Of the 2.6 million Greeks of Ottoman Turkey
in 1914, over 700,000 additional Thracian and Anatolian Greeks were
slaughtered, bringing the total Greek deaths to over one million.
Although the Pontic Greeks had settled on the southern shores and in
the mountains along the Black Sea since 875 B.C., and other Greeks had
settled in Anatolia since 1200 B.C., over 2,000 years before the first
Turkish tribes invaded, today it's difficult to find anyone who has
heard of the Pontians or Anatolian Greeks, as if they never existed?
Ditto for the Assyrians who had settlements in Asia minor dating
back four thousand years before the genocide that took the lives of
at least 275,000 Assyrians, more than half their population. As with
the Pontic Greeks, until recently, it was rare to find anyone who
knew Assyrians still existed in the modern world.
Armenian scholars rightfully criticize the Turkish government for
the denial of the Armenian Genocide that took place 100 years ago.
However, it's rarely mentioned that the first target of what, for many,
has become know exclusively as The Armenian Genocide, began against
the Greeks under Ottoman rule in Thrace in the spring of 1913, before
the commencement of WWI, and then in the summer of 1914 against the
Anatolian Greeks who lived along the western coast of Turkey.
Boycotts against Greek shops and goods, massacres of Greeks in towns
and villages -instigated by Young Turk propaganda - and conscription
of Greek men into the dreaded labor battalions, where they were worked
and starved to death, was responsible for hundreds of thousands of
Greek deaths.
How did the Young Turks incite hatred against former neighbors? US
Consul General George Horton, who was stationed at Smyrna from 1911
to 1917 and again from May 1919 to September 1922, reported that in
the spring of 1914, the Aegean Coast Greeks were demonized to induce
the Turkish population to destroy them. Horton wrote:
[V]iolent and inflammatory articles in the Turkish newspapers appeared
unexpectedly and without any cause ... so evidently "inspired" by
the authorities ... Cheap lithographs ... executed in the clumsiest
and most primitive manner ... represented Greeks cutting up Turkish
babies or ripping open pregnant Moslem women, and various purely
imaginary scenes, founded on no actual events or even accusations
elsewhere made. These were hung in the mosques and schools. ... and
set the Turk to killing...."
The sequence of events is noteworthy. U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire, Henry Morgenthau Sr., reported at the time that the Young
Turks were so successful against the Greeks, that they decided to go
after the other "races" as well... the Assyrians and Armenians. Just as
Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany signaled the beginning of a full-blown
genocide of the Jews, the pogroms against the Thracian and Anatolian
Greeks signaled the beginning of a full-blown genocide of the
Christians under Ottoman rule, Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians.
In October 1914, the Assyrians were the next Christian people to be
targeted through displacement, without care for their survival. In
1915, both Armenians and Assyrians were subjected to massacres and
death marches to expulsion. In 1916, the Pontic Greeks along the
Black Sea coast were targeted. Some Pontians were locked in churches
and burned alive.
In June 1918, four months before the end of the Great War, the Chicago
Daily Tribune reported that at least 1,000,000 Greek men, women,
and children had perished as a result of organized massacres and
deportations by "the Turco-Teutons" in Asiatic Turkey. On October 30,
1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed, officially bringing Ottoman
participation in the war to an end, but the massacres, death marches,
and labor camp conscriptions continued. A New York Times Article
dated December 8, 1918, affirms that:
"(...) the Turkish authorities, despite Turkey's defeat, are pursuing
a brutal attitude towards the Christian populations of the empire
and are inciting the Ottoman people to fanatical outrages against
the non-Moslems. (...) Many signs of organizing among the Turks for
new massacres of Christians, and particularly Greeks, are noted."
While it's true that denial of this crime is unconscionable, denial
has at least kept the memory of the Armenians in the minds, and
hopefully the hearts, of the general public. However, where news
and diplomatic reports were numerous at the time, today there is
usually silence. Silence surrounding the Christian Genocide by the
Ottoman and Kemalist regimes between 1913 and 1923 have, until now,
rendered the genocide of the Greeks and Assyrians complete. In fact,
for the general public, silence over the last 100 years has effectively
erased all memory of Pontic Greeks and Assyrians, co-victims of the
Armenians, as if they never existed.
Consul General of Greece, George Iliopoulos said at this year's
May 19th Pontian Commemoration Ceremony at Bowling Green in NYC,
"an atrocity can be forgiven, but should not be forgotten. Remorse is
painful and demonstrates spiritual superiority. Forgetting... shows an
inability to comprehend and accept history's lessons and demonstrates
disrespect for the victims. It is also a form of complicity. We need
not allow the world or Turkey to forget."
Senator Leonidas Raptakis joined with other Rhode Island senators to
declare May 19th a day of solemn remembrance of the Pontian Genocide,
and reminded the gathering at Bowling Green, that "it is vital and
proper to those who lost their lives in the Pontian Genocide, and it is
paramount that people of all nations look at this horrific event in our
world's not-so-distant history as a way to learn a valuable lesson, so
that such atrocities are not tolerated and are never committed again."
We could start with a U.S. Resolution that recognizes the genocide,
not only of the Armenians, but of the 3 million Christians under
Ottoman and Kemalist rule, Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks who were
slaughtered by various means between 1913 and 1923, which brought
four millennia of Christian presence in Turkey to a cruel and bitter
end in a matter of 10 short years.
In 2007 the international Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS),
consisting of hundreds of genocide scholars, affirmed the Greek,
Assyrian, and Armenian Genocides, as did Sweden (2010) and the
Netherlands (2015). The IAGS Resolution reads as follows:
WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage
of genocide,enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide,
and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides;
WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and
following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against
Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar
genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;
BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International
Association of GenocideScholars that the Ottoman campaign against
Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted
a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian
Greeks.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government
of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations,
to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps
toward restitution.
For a personal account of the genocide of all three Christian peoples,
see Not Even My Name.
www.notevenmyname.com
That is, silence wins out over denial if the genocide of a people is
to be complete. For almost 100 years, Pontic Greeks have mourned the
loss of the 353,000 fathers, mothers, grandparents, children, friends
and community members who were slaughtered outright, or who died
agonizing deaths on long death marches to expulsion from 1916 to 1923.
My mother was among them. Of the 2.6 million Greeks of Ottoman Turkey
in 1914, over 700,000 additional Thracian and Anatolian Greeks were
slaughtered, bringing the total Greek deaths to over one million.
Although the Pontic Greeks had settled on the southern shores and in
the mountains along the Black Sea since 875 B.C., and other Greeks had
settled in Anatolia since 1200 B.C., over 2,000 years before the first
Turkish tribes invaded, today it's difficult to find anyone who has
heard of the Pontians or Anatolian Greeks, as if they never existed?
Ditto for the Assyrians who had settlements in Asia minor dating
back four thousand years before the genocide that took the lives of
at least 275,000 Assyrians, more than half their population. As with
the Pontic Greeks, until recently, it was rare to find anyone who
knew Assyrians still existed in the modern world.
Armenian scholars rightfully criticize the Turkish government for
the denial of the Armenian Genocide that took place 100 years ago.
However, it's rarely mentioned that the first target of what, for many,
has become know exclusively as The Armenian Genocide, began against
the Greeks under Ottoman rule in Thrace in the spring of 1913, before
the commencement of WWI, and then in the summer of 1914 against the
Anatolian Greeks who lived along the western coast of Turkey.
Boycotts against Greek shops and goods, massacres of Greeks in towns
and villages -instigated by Young Turk propaganda - and conscription
of Greek men into the dreaded labor battalions, where they were worked
and starved to death, was responsible for hundreds of thousands of
Greek deaths.
How did the Young Turks incite hatred against former neighbors? US
Consul General George Horton, who was stationed at Smyrna from 1911
to 1917 and again from May 1919 to September 1922, reported that in
the spring of 1914, the Aegean Coast Greeks were demonized to induce
the Turkish population to destroy them. Horton wrote:
[V]iolent and inflammatory articles in the Turkish newspapers appeared
unexpectedly and without any cause ... so evidently "inspired" by
the authorities ... Cheap lithographs ... executed in the clumsiest
and most primitive manner ... represented Greeks cutting up Turkish
babies or ripping open pregnant Moslem women, and various purely
imaginary scenes, founded on no actual events or even accusations
elsewhere made. These were hung in the mosques and schools. ... and
set the Turk to killing...."
The sequence of events is noteworthy. U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire, Henry Morgenthau Sr., reported at the time that the Young
Turks were so successful against the Greeks, that they decided to go
after the other "races" as well... the Assyrians and Armenians. Just as
Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany signaled the beginning of a full-blown
genocide of the Jews, the pogroms against the Thracian and Anatolian
Greeks signaled the beginning of a full-blown genocide of the
Christians under Ottoman rule, Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians.
In October 1914, the Assyrians were the next Christian people to be
targeted through displacement, without care for their survival. In
1915, both Armenians and Assyrians were subjected to massacres and
death marches to expulsion. In 1916, the Pontic Greeks along the
Black Sea coast were targeted. Some Pontians were locked in churches
and burned alive.
In June 1918, four months before the end of the Great War, the Chicago
Daily Tribune reported that at least 1,000,000 Greek men, women,
and children had perished as a result of organized massacres and
deportations by "the Turco-Teutons" in Asiatic Turkey. On October 30,
1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed, officially bringing Ottoman
participation in the war to an end, but the massacres, death marches,
and labor camp conscriptions continued. A New York Times Article
dated December 8, 1918, affirms that:
"(...) the Turkish authorities, despite Turkey's defeat, are pursuing
a brutal attitude towards the Christian populations of the empire
and are inciting the Ottoman people to fanatical outrages against
the non-Moslems. (...) Many signs of organizing among the Turks for
new massacres of Christians, and particularly Greeks, are noted."
While it's true that denial of this crime is unconscionable, denial
has at least kept the memory of the Armenians in the minds, and
hopefully the hearts, of the general public. However, where news
and diplomatic reports were numerous at the time, today there is
usually silence. Silence surrounding the Christian Genocide by the
Ottoman and Kemalist regimes between 1913 and 1923 have, until now,
rendered the genocide of the Greeks and Assyrians complete. In fact,
for the general public, silence over the last 100 years has effectively
erased all memory of Pontic Greeks and Assyrians, co-victims of the
Armenians, as if they never existed.
Consul General of Greece, George Iliopoulos said at this year's
May 19th Pontian Commemoration Ceremony at Bowling Green in NYC,
"an atrocity can be forgiven, but should not be forgotten. Remorse is
painful and demonstrates spiritual superiority. Forgetting... shows an
inability to comprehend and accept history's lessons and demonstrates
disrespect for the victims. It is also a form of complicity. We need
not allow the world or Turkey to forget."
Senator Leonidas Raptakis joined with other Rhode Island senators to
declare May 19th a day of solemn remembrance of the Pontian Genocide,
and reminded the gathering at Bowling Green, that "it is vital and
proper to those who lost their lives in the Pontian Genocide, and it is
paramount that people of all nations look at this horrific event in our
world's not-so-distant history as a way to learn a valuable lesson, so
that such atrocities are not tolerated and are never committed again."
We could start with a U.S. Resolution that recognizes the genocide,
not only of the Armenians, but of the 3 million Christians under
Ottoman and Kemalist rule, Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks who were
slaughtered by various means between 1913 and 1923, which brought
four millennia of Christian presence in Turkey to a cruel and bitter
end in a matter of 10 short years.
In 2007 the international Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS),
consisting of hundreds of genocide scholars, affirmed the Greek,
Assyrian, and Armenian Genocides, as did Sweden (2010) and the
Netherlands (2015). The IAGS Resolution reads as follows:
WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage
of genocide,enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide,
and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides;
WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and
following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against
Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar
genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;
BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International
Association of GenocideScholars that the Ottoman campaign against
Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted
a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian
Greeks.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government
of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations,
to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps
toward restitution.
For a personal account of the genocide of all three Christian peoples,
see Not Even My Name.
www.notevenmyname.com
Wall Street Journal, NY
May 22 2015
Letters
Today's Turks Are the Ottomans' Successors
Turkish perpetrators of the 1915 Armenian genocide were later given
top jobs in the newly formed Turkish Republic.
I object to the assertion by Solomon P. Ortiz (Letters, May 13) that
the present Turkish administration has no connection to the Ottomans
who committed the Armenian genocide. During our last trip to the towns
in Turkey from which our parents, survivors of the genocide, were
deported, we noticed that the street names had been changed to the
names of the perpetrators. In addition, the leaders of the Turkish
Republic had pressured the British to release those perpetrators held
in jail cells in Malta. Furthermore, these same individuals, upon
returning home, were compensated for their services with top jobs in
the newly formed Turkish Republic and given homes and real estate that
were plundered after their Armenian owners were deported to the Syrian
desert to perish. Turkey could initiate a compensation process to make
up for what was seized from the victims.
Alice Ketabgian
La Canada Flintridge, Calif.
May 22 2015
Letters
Today's Turks Are the Ottomans' Successors
Turkish perpetrators of the 1915 Armenian genocide were later given
top jobs in the newly formed Turkish Republic.
I object to the assertion by Solomon P. Ortiz (Letters, May 13) that
the present Turkish administration has no connection to the Ottomans
who committed the Armenian genocide. During our last trip to the towns
in Turkey from which our parents, survivors of the genocide, were
deported, we noticed that the street names had been changed to the
names of the perpetrators. In addition, the leaders of the Turkish
Republic had pressured the British to release those perpetrators held
in jail cells in Malta. Furthermore, these same individuals, upon
returning home, were compensated for their services with top jobs in
the newly formed Turkish Republic and given homes and real estate that
were plundered after their Armenian owners were deported to the Syrian
desert to perish. Turkey could initiate a compensation process to make
up for what was seized from the victims.
Alice Ketabgian
La Canada Flintridge, Calif.
STORY OF 'FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE'
Carmarthen Journal, Wales, UK
May 20 2015
A CARMARTHEN vicar has officially launched his book about a "forgotten
genocide".
Canon Patrick Thomas, Vicar of Christ Church in Carmarthen, is also
honorary pastor to Armenians in Wales.
This year is an important year for Armenians as it is the centenary
of the Genocide in Ottoman Turkey during the First World War in which
more than a million Armenians lost their lives.
And a new book by Canon Patrick Thomas, titled Remembering the
Armenian Genocide 1915, has now been launched at the Senedd Building
in Cardiff. The royalties are being given to the Armenian Mission
Parish in Cardiff.
"I wanted to write a book that would be both readable and also
historically accurate," said Dr Thomas.
Canon Patrick Thomas will sign copies of the book in Waterstones in
Guildhall Square, Carmarthen, on Friday, May 29, from noon to 1pm.
telegraph.co.uk
Remembering the Armenians
Tom Payne examines two books which explore the divisive
Carmarthen Journal, Wales, UK
May 20 2015
A CARMARTHEN vicar has officially launched his book about a "forgotten
genocide".
Canon Patrick Thomas, Vicar of Christ Church in Carmarthen, is also
honorary pastor to Armenians in Wales.
This year is an important year for Armenians as it is the centenary
of the Genocide in Ottoman Turkey during the First World War in which
more than a million Armenians lost their lives.
And a new book by Canon Patrick Thomas, titled Remembering the
Armenian Genocide 1915, has now been launched at the Senedd Building
in Cardiff. The royalties are being given to the Armenian Mission
Parish in Cardiff.
"I wanted to write a book that would be both readable and also
historically accurate," said Dr Thomas.
Canon Patrick Thomas will sign copies of the book in Waterstones in
Guildhall Square, Carmarthen, on Friday, May 29, from noon to 1pm.
telegraph.co.uk
Remembering the Armenians
Tom Payne examines two books which explore the divisive
legacy of the Armenian genocide
By Tom Payne
24 May 2015
>From early 1915, under the "fog of war", Armenians began to disappear
from the Ottoman Empire. It could happen in a number of ways.
Sometimes it was a matter of destroying villages and rounding up the
inhabitants. Their murderers, Turks or Kurds, were as likely to use
bayonets, swords or axes as guns, because they wanted to save bullets.
Many left their homes on forced marches, to be attacked by killers,
frequently thrown into the Euphrates, the women raped.
Those who survived ended up in the Syrian Desert, around or in the
town of Der Zor, where they were murdered or starved to death. A
German witness noted: "Their stomachs, weakened by months of hunger,
are no longer able to absorb any food ... If you give them bread, they
put it aside indifferently. They lie there quietly and wait for
death."
It is impossible to say how many died. Figures begin at 600,000. Even
the Ottoman government of 1919 acknowledged that 800,000 were killed.
A million is probable, a million and a half possible.
READ: stories from the Armenian genocide
One problem in calculating the death toll is that some really did
disappear. The slaughterers thought little of killing children, and
one commander, Cevdet Bey, bragged before an attack, "I won't leave
one, not one so high," while holding his hand below knee-height. But
at other times children were taken and offered to local Muslims. Even
now there are people discovering that their grandparents were
survivors of the genocide.
Genocide. To study the numbers, and to hear commanders barking and
repeating the orders "Burn, destroy, kill" is to think, what other
word is there? And yet the rows continue to impede understanding
between Turks and Armenians, and even among Armenians themselves.
Those who left their homelands lobby for recognition that what
happened was genocide. Those in the now-independent Republic of
Armenia are more pragmatic - if they stop asking the Turks to use what
negotiators have to call "the G-word", then maybe the Turks will be
calmer about Armenian claims on parts of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Turks
don't want to use the G-word because if they do, they fear having to
give parts of Turkey to the Armenians.
A priest passes by the remains of people killed in 1915 inside an
Armenian church (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
It was that fear that began the genocide, and fear is a big factor in
whether we use the G-word at all. The man who invented the word,
Raphael Lemkin, wanted a term that described both the Armenian
massacres and the Jewish Holocaust. His definition was the "intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group". For all the slaughter, the intent is difficult to
prove. Official communications covered tracks, and picked up on coded
commands from previous attacks, such as "Restore order". Most scholars
now agree that an impossible international and internal situation led
to the atrocities, which began with deportations and ended in death,
all of which stemmed from the entrenched Ottoman fear of Armenians:
fear of their perceived success, their ambitions for land and
recognition within the Ottoman state, and ultimately, the Christianity
that aligned them closer to Russia.
READ: Amal Clooney's latest case: why Turkey won't talk about the
Armenian genocide
The authors of these two books agree that the horror of 1915-1916 came
from that fear. Thomas de Waal's book is clear as to what happened
next, and, in particular, on the "genocide" debates; Ronald Grigor
Suny's mission is to present a full picture of both sides rooted in
deep history. But there is a difference in emphasis at a vital moment
in the story: the town of Van.
For Turks who want to wish away the genocide, or at least explain it
away, the battle for Van is key. Armenians held it before the Russian
advance and attacked Turks from it. This is called the "provocation
thesis", which Suny rejects. For de Waal, the Armenians were in an
impossible situation. Both use the word genocide repeatedly, but de
Waal calls his book Great Catastrophe, in part because the dispute
about genocide is an obstacle to proper mourning and remembrance.
Although Suny is more insistent on the word, his book, compiled with a
mastery of sources and compelling accounts of the people behind them,
is an act of remembrance itself.
Remembrance is essential; but there is still the human urge to shout,
"Never again". It's an urge Kim Kardashian voiced in a blog: "It
happened before Rwanda, Darfur, and the Holocaust. Maybe none of those
other genocides would have happened if more nations had condemned the
Armenian genocide, when 1.5 million Armenians were massacred."
Raphael Lemkin thought the same: if the Turks could acknowledge the
crime against humanity, later regimes would know how they will be
judged. One reason for hope is that, thanks to the work of Suny and
others at the Workshop for Armenian-Turkish Scholarship, historians on
all sides are removing the fear that lay behind the original
catastrophe.
Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of
By Tom Payne
24 May 2015
>From early 1915, under the "fog of war", Armenians began to disappear
from the Ottoman Empire. It could happen in a number of ways.
Sometimes it was a matter of destroying villages and rounding up the
inhabitants. Their murderers, Turks or Kurds, were as likely to use
bayonets, swords or axes as guns, because they wanted to save bullets.
Many left their homes on forced marches, to be attacked by killers,
frequently thrown into the Euphrates, the women raped.
Those who survived ended up in the Syrian Desert, around or in the
town of Der Zor, where they were murdered or starved to death. A
German witness noted: "Their stomachs, weakened by months of hunger,
are no longer able to absorb any food ... If you give them bread, they
put it aside indifferently. They lie there quietly and wait for
death."
It is impossible to say how many died. Figures begin at 600,000. Even
the Ottoman government of 1919 acknowledged that 800,000 were killed.
A million is probable, a million and a half possible.
READ: stories from the Armenian genocide
One problem in calculating the death toll is that some really did
disappear. The slaughterers thought little of killing children, and
one commander, Cevdet Bey, bragged before an attack, "I won't leave
one, not one so high," while holding his hand below knee-height. But
at other times children were taken and offered to local Muslims. Even
now there are people discovering that their grandparents were
survivors of the genocide.
Genocide. To study the numbers, and to hear commanders barking and
repeating the orders "Burn, destroy, kill" is to think, what other
word is there? And yet the rows continue to impede understanding
between Turks and Armenians, and even among Armenians themselves.
Those who left their homelands lobby for recognition that what
happened was genocide. Those in the now-independent Republic of
Armenia are more pragmatic - if they stop asking the Turks to use what
negotiators have to call "the G-word", then maybe the Turks will be
calmer about Armenian claims on parts of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Turks
don't want to use the G-word because if they do, they fear having to
give parts of Turkey to the Armenians.
A priest passes by the remains of people killed in 1915 inside an
Armenian church (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
It was that fear that began the genocide, and fear is a big factor in
whether we use the G-word at all. The man who invented the word,
Raphael Lemkin, wanted a term that described both the Armenian
massacres and the Jewish Holocaust. His definition was the "intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group". For all the slaughter, the intent is difficult to
prove. Official communications covered tracks, and picked up on coded
commands from previous attacks, such as "Restore order". Most scholars
now agree that an impossible international and internal situation led
to the atrocities, which began with deportations and ended in death,
all of which stemmed from the entrenched Ottoman fear of Armenians:
fear of their perceived success, their ambitions for land and
recognition within the Ottoman state, and ultimately, the Christianity
that aligned them closer to Russia.
READ: Amal Clooney's latest case: why Turkey won't talk about the
Armenian genocide
The authors of these two books agree that the horror of 1915-1916 came
from that fear. Thomas de Waal's book is clear as to what happened
next, and, in particular, on the "genocide" debates; Ronald Grigor
Suny's mission is to present a full picture of both sides rooted in
deep history. But there is a difference in emphasis at a vital moment
in the story: the town of Van.
For Turks who want to wish away the genocide, or at least explain it
away, the battle for Van is key. Armenians held it before the Russian
advance and attacked Turks from it. This is called the "provocation
thesis", which Suny rejects. For de Waal, the Armenians were in an
impossible situation. Both use the word genocide repeatedly, but de
Waal calls his book Great Catastrophe, in part because the dispute
about genocide is an obstacle to proper mourning and remembrance.
Although Suny is more insistent on the word, his book, compiled with a
mastery of sources and compelling accounts of the people behind them,
is an act of remembrance itself.
Remembrance is essential; but there is still the human urge to shout,
"Never again". It's an urge Kim Kardashian voiced in a blog: "It
happened before Rwanda, Darfur, and the Holocaust. Maybe none of those
other genocides would have happened if more nations had condemned the
Armenian genocide, when 1.5 million Armenians were massacred."
Raphael Lemkin thought the same: if the Turks could acknowledge the
crime against humanity, later regimes would know how they will be
judged. One reason for hope is that, thanks to the work of Suny and
others at the Workshop for Armenian-Turkish Scholarship, historians on
all sides are removing the fear that lay behind the original
catastrophe.
Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of
Genocide byThomas de Waal
298pp, OUP, £16.99 (RRP £20, ebook £12.99). Call 0844 871 1515 or
seebooks.telegraph.co.uk
'They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else': a History of the
Armenian Genocide by Ronald Grigor Suny
490pp, Princeton, £20 (RRP £24.95, ebook £18.99). Call 0844 871 1515
or see books.telegraph.co.uk
298pp, OUP, £16.99 (RRP £20, ebook £12.99). Call 0844 871 1515 or
seebooks.telegraph.co.uk
'They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else': a History of the
Armenian Genocide by Ronald Grigor Suny
490pp, Princeton, £20 (RRP £24.95, ebook £18.99). Call 0844 871 1515
or see books.telegraph.co.uk
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