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What is the Armenian Genocide?
The atrocities committed against the Armenian people of the Ottoman
Empire during W.W.I are called the Armenian Genocide. Genocide
is the organized killing of a people for the express purpose of
putting an end to their collective existence. Because of its scope,
genocide requires central planning and a machinery to implement
it. This makes genocide the quintessential state crime as only
a government has the resources to carry out such a scheme of destruction.
The Armenian Genocide was centrally planned and administered by
the Turkish government against the entire Armenian population
of the Ottoman Empire. It was carried out during W.W.I between
the years 1915 and 1918. The Armenian people was subjected to
deportation, expropriation, abduction, torture, massacre, and
starvation. The great bulk of the Armenian population was forcibly
removed from Armenia and Anatolia to Syria, where the vast majority
was sent into the desert to die of thirst and hunger. Large numbers
of Armenians were methodically massacred throughout the Ottoman
Empire. Women and children were abducted and horribly abused.
The entire wealth of the Armenian people was expropriated. After
only a little more than a year of calm at the end of W.W.I, the
atrocities were renewed between 1920 and 1923, and the remaining
Armenians were subjected to further massacres and expulsions.
In 1915, thirty-three years before UN Genocide Convention was
adopted, the Armenian Genocide was condemned by the international
community as a crime against humanity. [top]
Who was responsible for the Armenian Genocide?
The decision to carry out a genocide against the Armenian people
was made by the political party in power in the Ottoman Empire.
This was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) (or Ittihad
ve Terakki Jemiyeti), popularly known as the Young Turks.
Three figures from the CUP controlled the government; Mehmet Talaat,
Minister of the Interior in 1915 and Grand Vizier (Prime Minister)
in 1917; Ismail Enver, Minister of War; Ahmed Jemal, Minister
of the Marine and Military Governor of Syria. This Young Turk
triumvirate relied on other members of the CUP appointed to high
government posts and assigned to military commands to carry out
the Armenian Genocide. In addition to the Ministry of War and
the Ministry of the Interior, the Young Turks also relied on a
newly-created secret outfit which they manned with convicts and
irregular troops, called the Special Organization (Teshkilati
Mahsusa). Its primary function was the carrying out of the
mass slaughter of the deported Armenians. In charge of the Special
Organization was Behaeddin Shakir, a medical doctor. Moreover,
ideologists such as Zia Gokalp propagandized through the media
on behalf of the CUP by promoting Pan-Turanism, the creation of
a new empire stretching from Anatolia into Central Asia whose
population would be exclusively Turkic. These concepts justified
and popularized the secret CUP plans to liquidate the Armenians
of the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turk conspirators, other leading
figures of the wartime Ottoman government, members of the CUP
Central Committee, and many provincial administrators responsible
for atrocities against the Armenians were indicted for their crimes
at the end of the war. The main culprits evaded justice by fleeing
the country. Even so, they were tried in absentia and found guilty
of capital crimes. The massacres, expulsions, and further mistreatment
of the Armenians between 1920 and 1923 were carried by the Turkish
Nationalists, who represented a new political movement opposed
to the Young Turks, but who shared a common ideology of ethnic
exclusivity. [top]
How many people died in the Armenian Genocide?
It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians perished
between 1915 and 1923. There were an estimated two million Armenians
living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of W.W.I. Well over a
million were deported in 1915. Hundreds of thousands were butchered
outright. Many others died of starvation, exhaustion, and epidemics
which ravaged the concentration camps. Among the Armenians living
along the periphery of the Ottoman Empire many at first escaped
the fate of their countrymen in the central provinces of Turkey.
Tens of thousands in the east fled to the Russian border to lead
a precarious existence as refugees. The majority of the Armenians
in Constantinople, the capital city, were spared deportation.
In 1918, however, the Young Turk regime took the war into the
Caucasus, where approximately 1,800,000 Armenians lived under
Russian dominion. Ottoman forces advancing through East Armenia
and Azerbaijan here too engaged in systematic massacres. The expulsions
and massacres carried by the Nationalist Turks between 1920 and
1922 added tens of thousands of more victims. By 1923 the entire
landmass of Asia Minor and historic West Armenia had been expunged
of its Armenian population. The destruction of the Armenian communities
in this part of the world was total. [top]
Were there witnesses to the Armenian Genocide?
There were many witnesses to the Armenian Genocide. Although
the Young Turk government took precautions and imposed restrictions
on reporting and photographing, there were lots of foreigners
in the Ottoman Empire who witnessed the deportations. Foremost
among them were U.S. diplomatic representatives and American missionaries.
They were first to send news to the outside world about the unfolding
genocide. Some of their reports made headline news in the American
and Western media. Also reporting on the atrocities committed
against the Armenians were many German eyewitnesses. The Germans
were allies of the Turks in W.W.I. Numerous German officers held
important military assignments in the Ottoman Empire. Some among
them condoned the Young Turk policy. Others confidentially reported
to their superiors in Germany about the slaughter of the Armenian
civilian population. Many Russians saw for themselves the devastation
wreaked upon the Armenian communities when the Russian Army occupied
parts of Anatolia. Many Arabs in Syria where most of the deportees
were sent saw for themselves the appalling condition to which
the Armenian survivors had been reduced. Lastly, many Turkish
officials were witnesses as participants in the Armenian Genocide.
A number of them gave testimony under oath during the post-war
tribunals convened to try the Young Turk conspirators who organized
the Armenian Genocide. [top]
What was the response of the international community
to the Armenian Genocide?
The international community condemned the Armenian Genocide.
In May 1915, Great Britain, France, and Russia advised the Young
Turk leaders that they would be held personally responsible for
this crime against humanity. There was a strong public outcry
in the United States against the mistreatment of the Armenians.
At the end of the war, the Allied victors demanded that the Ottoman
government prosecute the Young Turks accused of wartime crimes.
Relief efforts were also mounted to save "the starving Armenians."
The American, British, and German governments sponsored the preparation
of reports on the atrocities and numerous accounts were published.
On the other hand, despite the moral outrage of the international
community, no strong actions were taken against the Ottoman Empire
either to sanction its brutal policies or to salvage the Armenian
people from the grip of extermination. Moreover, no steps were
taken to require the postwar Turkish governments to make restitution
to the Armenian people for their immense material and human losses.
[top]
Why is the Armenian Genocide commemorated on April
24?
On the night of April 24, 1915, the Turkish government placed
under arrest over 200 Armenian community leaders in Constantinople.
Hundreds more were apprehended soon after. They were all sent
to prison in the interior of Anatolia, where most were summarily
executed. The Young Turk regime had long been planning the Armenian
Genocide and reports of atrocities being committed against the
Armenians in the eastern war zones had been filtering in during
the first months of 1915. The Ministry of War had already acted
on the government's plan by disarming the Armenian recruits in
the Ottoman Army, reducing them to labor battalions and working
them under conditions equaling slavery. The incapacitation and
methodic reduction of the Armenian male population, as well as
the summary arrest and execution of the Armenian leadership marked
the earliest stages of the Armenian Genocide. These acts were
committed under the cover of a news blackout on account of the
war and the government proceeded to implement its plans to liquidate
the Armenian population with secrecy. Therefore, the Young Turks
regime's true intentions went undetected until the arrests of
April 24. As the persons seized that night included the most prominent
public figures of the Armenian community in the capital city of
the Ottoman Empire, everyone was alerted about the dimensions
of the policies being entertained and implemented by the Turkish
government. Their death presaged the murder of an ancient civilization.
April 24 is, therefore, commemorated as the date of the unfolding
of the Armenian Genocide. [top]
Are the Armenian massacres acknowledged today as
a Genocide according to the United Nations Genocide Convention?
The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide, describes genocide as "acts committed
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical,
racial or religious group." Clearly this definition applies in
the case of the atrocities committed against the Armenians. Because
the U.N. Convention was adopted in 1948, thirty years after the
Armenian Genocide, Armenians worldwide have sought from their
respective governments formal acknowledgment of the crimes committed
during W.W.I. Countries like France, Argentina, Greece, and Russia,
where the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and their descendants
live, have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide. However,
as a matter of policy, the present-day Republic of Turkey adamantly
denies that a genocide was committed against the Armenians during
W.W.I. Moreover, Turkey dismisses the evidence about the atrocities
as mere allegations and regularly obstructs efforts for acknowledgment.
Affirming the truth about the Armenian Genocide, therefore, has
become an issue of international significance. The recurrence
of genocide in the twentieth century has made the reaffirmation
of the historic acknowledgment of the criminal mistreatment of
the Armenians by Turkey all the more a compelling obligation for
the international community. [top]
Forget the Armenian Genocide. Why
should we be concerned with something that happened 75 years ago
and 8,000 miles away?
Genocide is a crime against humanity, and there is no statue
of limitations on genocide -- not even one 75 years old.
The fact that a major crime against humanity takes place 8,000
miles away from the United States makes it no less a crime. Was
Hitler justified in killing Jews because he was 5,000 miles away?
Should American troops not defend Saudi Arabia because Saddam
Hussein is 9,000 miles away?
It was the old Ottoman Empire that committed the crime, but present-day
Turkey becomes an accomplice after the fact by its expensive campaign
of denial, denial not only for itself but for the old Ottoman
Empire. This principle of becoming an accomplice by the cover-up
of a crime is part of the rule of law. [top]
What have Americans to do with the
Armenian Genocide?
America was the first country to recognize the Armenian Genocide
and continued to recognize it until misguided officials sought
favor with the Republic of Turkey by joining in an ugly, and quite
unnecessary, distortion of history.
The Armenian Genocide was witnessed by hundreds of American missionaries
in the Ottoman Empire who worked among the Armenians and have
testified to their destruction by the Ottoman government.
The Genocide was also witnessed by American consular officials,
stationed in the areas inhabited by the Armenians, who reported
it to the American ambassador in Istanbul.
The American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau,
Sr., confronted the Young Turk leaders, and then he telegraphed
the American Secretary of State calling the Turkish action an
attempt at "racial extermination."
The American Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, wired
U.S. Ambassador Morgenthau to continue the strongest possible
protest to the Ottoman government on behalf of the Armenians.
The Armenian Genocide was well-reported in the American press,
and the U.S. Senate held hearing which affirmed its reality.
President Woodrow Wilson agreed to draw the boundaries of a free
Armenia and sent a message to Congress asking for permission to
establish a U.S. mandate over the new state.
[I ask this] "Not only because it [the mandate] embodied my own
convictions and feeling with regard to Armenia and its people,
but also, and more particularly, because it seemed to me to be
the voice of the American people expressing their deep sympathies.
At their hearts, this great and generous people [the Americans]
have made the case of Armenia their own.
The American people raised millions of dollars to aid the victims
of the Genocide. Our older citizens will remember aid to the "starving
Armenians."
President Herbert Hoover wrote in his Memoirs:
Probably Armenian was known to the American school child in 1919
only a little less than England ... of the staunch Christians
who were massacred periodically by the Mohammedian Turk, and the
Sunday School collections of over fifty years for alleviating
their miseries. . . . [top]
All these Americans who reported
the Armenian Genocide were biased against us. They were not telling
the truth.
There was no reason for the Americans to lie. America was a neutral
power during the time of the Armenian Genocide. In fact America
never did go to war against Turkey but kept up diplomatic relations
so that it could intervene on behalf of the Armenians.
Anyway, who are the Turks to accuse the Americans of lying? [top]
Why not leave historical questions
to the historians? Why should the issue of the Armenian Genocide
be fought out in Congress?
The Turks have adopted the line of "leave Armenian history to
the historians" because they are losing their propaganda battle.
The issue of the Armenian Genocide is not a question of historical
truth, that has been settled; it is rather an issue of morality
and the acceptance of the truth.
History is too important to leave to historians. By leaving the
Armenian injustice of World War I uncorrected, the stage was set
for the Holocaust of World War II. The abandonment of the Armenians
was not lost on Hitler. Hitler said before sending his troops
into Poland, "Go, go kill without mercy. Who today remembers the
extermination of the Armenians." [top]
Why should America acknowledge
the Armenian Genocide now?
America is the moral leader of the world. We must set the record
straight, to rehabilitate America's innocence, extricate the U.S.
from an ugly distortion of history, and to restore America's respectability
in the eyes of our European allies who, accepting the truth, are
amazed at Americas hypocrisy.
No principled Turk should be offended by the truth. After all,
a large number of Armenian survivors of the Genocide owe their
lives to devout Turks. To be a patriotic Turk does not require
hating Armenians or distorting history. [top]
There is more than one side to
every story.
Truth is not divisible by two. Is there another side about Hitler
who gassed Jews, about Stalin who starved Ukrainians, or about
Pol Pt and the Khmer Rouge who massacred Cambodians? Of course
not. Genocide is so blatant an evil that it has no other side
to the story. [top]
It is your word against ours.
The Turks themselves have confessed in earlier times. Prime Minister
Damat Ferid Pasha placed the blame squarely on the Young Turk
Party. Mustafa Kemal Pasha {Ataturk} said {in a 1926 interview
with a Swiss reporter that} the Young Turks "should be made to
account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who
were ruthlessly driven en masse from their homes and massacred.
. . ."
After the war, the Turks held courts-martial to prosecute and
convict the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. Several were
sentenced to death. [top]
Why do Armenians get all the sympathy,
Turks died too. Perhaps some three million Turks died during the
period of the alleged genocide against the Armenians.
It is doubtful that three million Turks died in World War I.
Turkish propagandists usually use the more correct, but still
deceptive, expression "three million Muslims." Yes, three million
Muslims probably did die in WW I, but so did twenty million Christians.
T he Turks died, unfortunately, because their own government led
them into World War I against the European Allies. Many Turkish
Muslims also died fighting Arab Muslims, who were seeking their
freedom from Ottoman oppression, and Indian Muslims who where
with the British Middle East army in Mesopotamia. All this Muslim
blood, then, is on the head of the Ottoman Turkish government
and not on the victimized and helpless Armenians.
There were only around three million Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire, most of them old men, women, and children, and they can
hardly be blamed for the death of three million "Turks or Muslims."
[top]
The Armenians were killed in a civil
war, or an ethnic feud; it was not genocide.
When the armed government of 25 million people turns on and exterminates
an unarmed minority of three million old men, women, and children,
it is hardly an "intercommunal struggle", "an ethnic feud", or
"civil war"; it is nothing more or less than genocide. [top]
Why pick on Turkey? Turkey is
a "model modern Moslem country."
Since when do model countries deny
their citizens human rights and religious freedom?
Turkey's thinly veiled military dictatorship with its long history
of human rights abuses, its repression of the legitimate aspiration
of the Kurds for cultural autonomy, its historic antagonism towards
the Arabs, and its invasion of Cyprus, hardly make Turkey a "model
modern Moslem country."
If the Turks are disliked and feared by most Europeans, the Kurds,
the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Armenians, perhaps there is some
reason. The Turks ought to throw off their atavistic ghazi mentality,
modernize their feudal agrarian economy, and outgrow their penchant
for military government and abuse of human rights. [top]
We have opened the Turkish archives.
The Turkish archives do not prove there was an Armenian Genocide.
The Turkish archives covering the period of the Armenian Genocide
are not opened to the public. They are only open to Turkish scholars
and persons friendly to Turkey.
Th e Turkish archives have been closed so long that scholars have
no idea of what is being purged. Furthermore, the work of the
Genocide was done under the aegis of the Committee of Union and
Progress, a shadow government similar to the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union, and in particular by its Special Organization
(Teskilat-i Mahsusa) under the notorious Dr. Behaettin Shakir
who was sentenced to death in absentia by a Turkish court-martial
following World War I. Will their records be opened? [top]
American Admiral Mark Bristol's
testimony proves there was no Genocide. Admiral Bristol proves that
Morgenthau was lying.
Ambassador Morgenthau, who informed the world about the Armenian
Genocide, was there when it happened. Admiral Mark Bristol, who
became U.S. High Commissioner in Turkey after World War I, did
not even arrive in Turkey until 1920. Since Bristol was not in
Turkey during the Genocide, and the Armenians had already been
killed, he had to ask the Turks what happened. Bristol could only
talk to the executioners of the Armenians, the Turks. The Turks
are hardly creditable witnesses to their own crime.
Bristol, a stern military man, liked the military junta ruling
the post-World War I Turkey, and he eagerly talked about the "bad
qualities" of the Armenians and Greeks. Do "bad qualities" justify
a genocide? If so, that might put even the Turks and Americans
at risk. [top]
The only reason that the Turks
aren't allowed into the European Community is their Islamic religion.
What concerns the Europeans is not the religion of the Turks,
but rather their values. Judeo-Christian culture, which characterizes
the Western world, is dedicated to developing a moral society.
Democracy and faith in the beneficent value of truth is the current
manifestation of this aspiration. If the Turks were to thirst
after justice and righteousness, values to which we in the West
aspire, they would most certainly be welcomed in any society.
The first sign of this new morality would appropriately be for
the present-day Turks to acknowledge the Ottoman genocide of the
Armenians. [top]
No one to date has been able
to come up with creditable documentation of Hitler's alleged statement
about the Armenians. Hitler never made the statement.
The Hitler statement, which the Turks have questioned, was authenticated
by Dr. K.B. Bardakjian, at Harvard in 1985 from secret notes taken
by German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris during Hitler's speech. {See
K.B. Bardakjian, Hitler and the Armenian Genocide (Cambridge,
MA: Zoryan Institute, 1985).} [top]
How do the Armenians expect the
American people to feel sorry for them when they support terrorism?
The assassinations, which only began in 1973, were stopped in
1983 by Armenian public opinion. Armenians do not need terrorists,
because people of good will, having studied the Armenian case,
now have greater understanding and sympathy. [top]
Only 600,000 Armenians died in
the Ottoman Empire during World War I, not 1.5 million, and they
were killing Turks during that time.
The Turks play with numbers in a grotesque way. They argue that
only 600,000 Armenians were killed not 1.5 million. Would this
change the basic truth that a genocidal massacre occurred in 1915?
Almost the entire Armenian population of Turkey was wiped out
by its own government, the Turkish government. Does it really
make the Turks better if they succeeded in killing only 600,000
Armenians and not 1.5 million? In any case, is was genocide.
The Turks insist that Armenians were also killing Turks. It is
true that scores of Armenians fought back successfully. But how
can you compare self-defense with murder? The Armenians were killed
by their own government, the Turkish government; they sometimes
fought back to protect themselves. [top]
The Turks had to deport the Armenians
from the eastern war front where they were helping the Russians
who promised them a homeland.
Armenians all over Anatolia, not just on the eastern war front,
were wiped out. The cities of Yozgard, Sivas, Ceasrea, Hajin,
Marash, and Adana -- just to name a few -- are hardly in the east.
One needs but to look at a map of Turkey to see this. Turks depend
on American ignorance of geography to make such foolish claims.
Russia under the Tsars never offered the Armenians or any other
subject peoples their freedom. The last tsar, Nicholas II, would
not even share power with his own Russian people, which helped
prompt the Russian revolution during World War I. {Russia even
forbade Armenian refugees, who had managed to flee the Genocide,
from returning to their lands, which the Russian armies had overran
during the war.} Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky, foreign minister of
Russia in 1895, summed it all up by saying, "Yes, Russia wants
Armenia, but without the Armenians." [top]
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