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25.2.10
3019) Pursuing The Just Cause Of Their People A Study Of Contemporary Armenian Terrorism by Michael M.Gunter
24.2.10
3017) ARMENIANS Cannot Get A Thing!
(Translated from Turkish)
“TAKVIM” Daily Newspaper, Feb.22, 2010 (page 1 & 11) (By Arda Uskan)
Page 1:
* Sukru Server Aya, aged 80, who dedicated his life to research the Armenian allegations, has disclosed documented truths to TAKVIM.
* Armenians who expect indemnity from Turkey, cannot get a thing, because we paid compensation to USA in 1937, the account is settled!
Page 11: THE TURK WHO DEFIES DIASPORA
(Businessman Sukru Server Aya says, American Armenians cannot get a thing from Turkey.)
While Turkey is giving a . . fight against Armenian genocide allegations, individual struggles continue as well. Sukru Server Aya, a businessman aged 80, has given some 25 years of his life to the Armenian allegations. Aya has written two books on this subject and hits on the Armenian diaspora with their own weapons. Aya has completed his book “Genocide Traders and Truths” in some four years. As an example Aya shows Armen Garo cod named Armenian terrorist’s book (who had bombed the Ottoman Bank in 1896). Aya objects the draft resolution for Armenian demands, to be voted on in the near future in the US Congress.
Reputed businessman says that “in the draft that they want to pass, it is stated that Turks killed 1.5 million Armenians. But he adds that at the same period of time, 1.411.000 Armenians is indicated to be alive. In connection with the compensation demands of Armenians, Aya speaks as follows: The American Armenians cannot get even a single chip, because in 1937 Turkey paid USA an indemnity on this matter. Diaspora collects annually about 1.5 billion Dollars as contributions and about 100 to 150 millions of this money goes to the Armenians in Armenia. The difference is shared among themselves.
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For more details and documents:
Armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/11/2644-free-consolation-versus-frail.html
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22.2.10
3015) Saga Surrounding A Forged Photograph From The Era Of The Genocide
by Abraham D. Krikorian and Eugene L. Taylor, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
22.2.2010
Related Post:
Yet Another Armenian Forgery: Read About It Here:
Abstract
A book authored by Donald Bloxham entitled The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians was published in 2005 as a hardback, and as a paperback in 2007 by Oxford University Press (OUP). A photograph captioned `A Turkish official taunting starving Armenians with bread' was not questioned as to its authenticity either in the pre- or post-publication review process. In the fall of 2009 Dr. Jeremy Salt of Bilkent University, Ankara et al. reported that the photograph was a forgery. Upon being notified of the forgery, OUP's response was to admit the error, destroy existing stock, and re-issue the volume with the same photo but with a new caption intended to constitute a `more effective rejoinder to the forger than silently dropping [the photo]...' In no way does the forged photograph affect the conclusions drawn by Bloxham as to the reality of the Armenian Genocide. Early in 2010 the photographic forgery was sensationalized in an Ankara newspaper article. The photograph was presented as yet another example of the many `forgeries' claimed to support a case for a genocide perpetrated by the Young Turks against Armenians. We show that the forged photograph was published at least as early as 1919 in a book in Armenian printed in Cairo. A publication trail back to its source is presented for the forged image. The `silver lining' in all this will hopefully be that more work will be stimulated on the study of attestation and attribution of photographs relevant to genocide and atrocities in the broadest context. Photographs and their captions ought to `say exactly what they mean' and `mean what they say.' The Armenian Genocide needs no validation by photographs but we owe it to those who lost their lives and those who survived to do as good a job as possible . .
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21.2.10
3014) Haytoug: Some Things Are Not For Sale / In Whose Interest : Political Economy Of Armenian-Turkish Relations?
- Some Things Are Not For Sale
Message From The Editor, Winter 2010, Haytoug
- In Whose Interest?
The Political Economy Of Armenian-Turkish Relations
By Serouj Aprahamian and Allen Yekikan
Message From The Editor, Winter 2010 Haytoug
Some Things Are Not For Sale
The Armenia-Turkey Protocols present a critical juncture in our nation’s history.
Through the stroke of a pen, the rights, dignity and interests of the Armenian people threaten to be sacrificed on the altar of political and economic expediency.
The countless years of relentless work put into having the world open up its eyes to the reality of the Armenian Genocide risk being undermined through the creation of a so-called ‘historic commission.’
The Armenian people’s legal and moral claims to Ararat, Ani, Kars, Van and the rest of our historic homeland threaten to be forfeited through the legitimization of a border created through Genocide and aggression. . .
The sacrifice of thousands of our best men and women in the liberation of Artsakh threatens to be compromised by an agreement emphasizing artificial state boundaries above the right to selfdetermination. The recent qualified ruling handed down by the Armenian Constitutional Court—while deciding that the Protocols are constitutional— held serious judicial reservations. The Court stated that ratification of the Protocols cannot contradict Article 11 of Armenia’s Declaration of Independence [The Republic of Armenia stands in support of the task of achieving international recognition of the 1915 Genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia] and that the Protocols cannot speak on behalf of Artsakh.
The unprecedented international outpouring of anger and opposition to the provisions of the Protocols resounded in a loud and unified “NO!” to the officials in Yerevan. It reminded the ruling elite in Armenia and The Armenia-Turkey Protocols present a critical juncture in our nation’s history.
Through the stroke of a pen, the rights, dignity and interests of the Armenian people threaten to be sacrificed on the altar of political and economic expediency.
The countless years of relentless work put into having the world open up its eyes to the reality of the Armenian Genocide risk being undermined through the creation of a so-called ‘historic commission.’
The Armenian people’s legal and moral claims to Ararat, Ani, Kars, Van and the rest of our historic homeland threaten to be forfeited through the legitimization of a border created through Genocide and aggression.
The sacrifice of thousands of our best men and women in the liberation of Artsakh threatens to be compromised by an agreement emphasizing artificial state boundaries above the right to selfdetermination.
The recent qualified ruling handed down by the Armenian Constitutional Court—while deciding that the Protocols are constitutional— held serious judicial reservations. The Court stated that ratification of the Protocols cannot contradict Article 11 of Armenia’s Declaration of Independence [The Republic of Armenia stands in support of the task of achieving international recognition of the 1915 Genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia] and that the Protocols cannot speak on behalf of Artsakh.
The unprecedented international outpouring of anger and opposition to the provisions of the Protocols resounded in a loud and unified “NO!” to the officials in Yerevan. It reminded the ruling elite in Armenia and throughout the world that our perseverance as a people has never come out of submission and capitulation. Our triumph over the odds has not been a result of backdoor deals and political maneuverings. Rather, our survival has been due to the resilient determination to struggle for our basic rights.
The dangerous implications of the Protocols for our national interests point, more than ever, to the urgent need to change the undemocratic, unjust, and inequitable conditions in our homeland. The lack of accountability of those in power and the disillusionment of the general population must be reversed if we want to see the viable and prosperous Armenia we all envision in our hearts. Such a reversal will require us to not turn away from Armenia, but rather to flock more firmly towards it.
Just as we struggle against the odds to maintain our identity and community in the Diaspora, we must come together collectively— organized and determined—to overcome the obstacles that stand before our nation’s future.
The onus is on us to unite and do the work required to see our struggle through; to ensure the sanctity of our national and historical interests and to declare that they are not for sale, at any cost.
The goals remain to secure the international recognition of Artsakh’s statehood, the pursuit of reparations from the Government of Turkey for the crime of Genocide, an end of the occupation of Western Armenia and the establishment of social justice, human rights and democracy in the Republic of Armenia.
The movement continues…
www.Stopthe Protocols.com
In Whose Interest?
The Political Economy Of Armenian-Turkish Relations By Serouj Aprahamian and Allen Yekikan
The Turkey-Armenia Protocols ushered in an unprecedented wave of international outcry against the policies of the Armenian government.
Massive demonstrations took place in almost every major city of the Diaspora; 60,000 protestors took to the streets in Yerevan; leading Armenian academics and Genocide scholars forcefully spoke out against the Protocols; two former Foreign Ministers of Armenia came out against the measure; 14 political parties and dozens of organizations within Armenia signed a statement against ratification of the documents; and the sole opinion poll taken on the issue showed that 52.4%[1] of the population in Yerevan was against the signing.
Nevertheless, the Foreign Minister of Armenia traveled to Zurich on October 10, 2009 and signed the Protocols with his Turkish counterpart. Today, the Armenian government vehemently calls on Turkey to ratify the agreement, after which it promises to immediately follow suit.
Given the widespread opposition and detrimental effects the Protocols are deemed to have on such pan-Armenian interests as Genocide recognition, legal claims to the Armenian homeland, and the liberation of Artsakh, many people have been left to wonder why Yerevan has pushed forward with this controversial policy with such vigor.
Why would the Armenian government risk going against the will of the majority of its people and give up so much in return for mere Turkish promises of normal relations?
Who Gains, Who Loses To find answers to this question, it’s essential to look beyond just technical issues about what the Protocols entail and the arguments of both its proponents and opponents. We must look, instead, at the core interests of those in Armenia who hold the levers of power. To put it more simply, in order to understand how policy The Turkey-Armenia Protocols ushered in an unprecedented wave of international outcry against the policies of the Armenian government.
Who Gains, Who Loses
To find answers to this question, it’s essential to look beyond just technical issues about what the Protocols entail and the arguments of both its proponents and opponents. We must look, instead, at the core interests of those in Armenia who hold the levers of power. To put it more simply, in order to understand how policy is formed, it is important to understand those who form policy.
By now, it should be common knowledge that decision-making in Armenia is controlled by a small circle of elites, who dominate the country’s political and economic landscape. Whether we look at the President’s administration, the makeup of the National Assembly, or the heads and support-base of political parties in the coalition government, we find an easily distinguishable lineup of oligarchs that have woven their noose around Armenia’s institutions and its society.
What’s unique about this social class is the magnitude of power they command, far surpassing the influence of any other segment of the general population. These oligarchs also share a common set of economic interests, living standards, values, and norms of behavior. They are, in fact, a distinct social class with tight links to one another, who operate on a political plane detached from the general public.
When looking into the business interests of this group of people, we find that a large number of them have made their wealth by dominating key commodity imports (e.g. gas, wheat, oil, butter, sugar, and so on). These business interests of the oligarchic class reflect the makeup of Armenia’s skewed economic landscape as a whole, with imports making up 40% of GDP, while exports only account for 10%.
Meanwhile, 70% of exports are comprised of raw materials, minerals, and stones. A large fraction of this class became rich through controlling the mining and exporting of Armenia’s diamonds, copper, and gold, to name a few. That virtually all of these individuals have also acquired large tracts of land and property throughout the country is no coincidence either, as 40% of Armenia’s annual growth is accredited to construction and real-estate. [2] As such, a considerable level of power is in the hands of these oligarchs whose monopoly over key sectors of the economy has significantly stymied the country’s economic development.
The lifting of the Turkish blockade is anticipated to further enrich these dominant figures by allowing them to directly bring in products over the Turkish border, rather than the more costly route currently used through Georgia. In turn, opening the border is anticipated to provide new opportunities for those seeking to sell Armenia’s natural minerals in the international market. Property values and foreign investments are also expected to rise once relations are normalized with Turkey, placing many of those in Armenia’s oligarchic class who possess major realestate and retail interests in a privileged position to reap profits.
The majority of Armenians, on the other hand, who struggle to make ends meet as farmers, wage laborers, or small businessmen are not likely to see much of the gains from opening the border. On the contrary, agricultural workers and local producers stand to suffer greatly under the weight of cheaper imports flooding in from Turkey, while laborers are likely to witness declining or stagnating wages under the pressure of foreign capital. Furthermore, rampant corruption and tax evasion ensure that whatever financial gains do accrue at the top will not be distributed down to the majority of the population.
The chairman of the Union of Domestic Manufacturers of Armenia, Vazgen Safarian, recently explained, “On the one hand, our consumers [and importers] will benefit from the cheap goods, but on the other hand, this will doom our local producers to having to shut down or to suspend operations.” Another Yerevan businessman, who actually imports fabrics from Turkey, stated “Then, many people will start importing goods, maybe the prices will go down. [T]his will hit everyone, [but] I think my business will suffer.”[3]
Edgar Helgelyan, an expert with the Mitk Analytical Center, also weighed in on the issue. “We are seriously concerned that the opening of the border will considerably damage the Armenian economy. Imports from Turkey to Armenia account for about $178 million, while exports from Armenia to Turkey do not surpass $1.8 million,” he said during a press conference releasing a report submitted to the Armenian government on the subject.[4]
In other words, the much-touted “growth in GDP” or “improvement of the Armenian economy” that IMF technocrats and government apologists alike parrot as the silver bullet behind supporting the Protocols, is likely to provide a boom for the oligarchic elite but a bust for nearly everyone else. This might help to explain why many average citizens in Armenia are opposed to the Protocols on economic, in addition to national, grounds; they fear having to bare the economic costs of the agreement while the elite reap the benefits.
This reality also helps to explain why Armenia’s leading class has lent its unflinching support to the Protocols, with many being vocally in favor of the move, both in parliament and in business circles.
To give one of many examples, a leading proponent of the agreements in Armenia is Vardan Ayvazyan, the current head of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Economic Issues. Throughout his years in government, Mr. Ayvazyan has secured various mining licenses for himself and his family, including an ironstone mine in Hrazdan and two mines for his brother in Syunik and Lori provinces. It therefore comes as no surprise that he repeatedly boasts about the benefits of the protocols, claiming that, “Opening of the border can lead to 4 percent growth of GDP” or that the Protocols will “ensure a new economic path for our country.”
For individuals such as Ayvazyan, who have used Armenia’s legislative process towards their economic gains, opening the border provides new opportunities to capitalize on the exploitation of Armenia’s natural resources. [5] The mere fact that the agreement has advanced this far is itself a testimony to the backing the government—many of who themselves make up the oligarchic class—has received from Armenia’s wealthy elite.
Indeed, in a recent interview to an Armenian newspaper, President Serzh Sargsyan smugly stated, “I have not heard from any serious businessperson in Armenia that has doubts of the economic benefit of opening the border.”
Capitalism Over Nationalism Significant profits are surely anticipated to be made in the upper echelons of Armenian society once the borders are opened. But at what cost are Armenia’s oligarchs willing to pursue their pocket books? Would they be willing to give in to Turkish conditions and renounce Armenia’s national rights for the sake of lifting the blockade? Unfortunately, for many of the Armenian elite, national interests such as Karabakh’s self determination, justice for the Armenian Genocide or legal claims to historic lands do not seem to be as much of a concern as they are for the general population.[6]
This was perhaps most famously demonstrated by the head of the Armenian Football Federation (AFF), well-known oligarch Ruben Hairapetyan.[7] In the runup to the Turkish president’s visit to Armenia for the much-touted soccer match between the two nations, Hairapetyan suddenly removed the image of Ararat from the AFF’s official logo, sparking a major outcry within Armenia. Although he was later forced to reinstate the original logo with Ararat as the centerpiece, the inherent disregard for Armenia’s national rights and dignity was blatantly exposed by the scandal.
It should be pointed out that such a dismissive attitude towards pan-national interests is not a new phenomenon among the ruling class in Armenia. We saw similar sentiments expressed during the tenure of Armenia’s first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who was the chief architect of the system of autocracy and oligopoly we presently see in Armenia.[8] It was, thus, not surprising to see Ter-Petrosyan’s newly formed opposition immediately suspend their protest actions against the government in September 2008, when they learned that the Turkish president would be coming to town for a soccer match.[9] More recently, despite his earlier bitter denunciations of the government, Ter-Petrosyan has praised the Sargsyan regime’s policy on Turkish-Armenian relations and has even expressed his desire to establish cooperation with the ruling regime.[10]
Russia’s Backyard
In addition to the economic incentives and tendency to compromise national rights, there is an equally powerful factor to be considered when examining the ruling elite’s support for the Protocols: alignment with Russia.
Most of the prominent business and political elites in Armenia have direct personal ties to business and political interests in their former Soviet patron. We find that they either have major business ventures in Russia or serve as the overseers of Russian capital investments in Armenia. As one member of the ARF Western US Central Committee recently put it, “If Armenia is Russia’s backyard, then they [oligarchs] are the gardeners.”[11] Indeed, Russia itself has a controlling stake in many of Armenia’s most strategic assets—gas, oil, nuclear power, electricity, telecommunications, rail, and finance, to name a few. It is estimated that Russia has over $2.5 billion of economic interests in the country. Given Armenia’s vulnerability to any instability Russia could potentially cause in these strategically important sectors, no major decision on the magnitude of the Protocols could be made without the blessing of the “Big Uncle.” The ruling elite in Armenia must pay special heed to the wishes of Moscow if they want to avoid any unwanted disruptions to the state and economy. Thus, it was no accident that President Sargsyan, during a state visit to Moscow in June 2008, extended an invitation to his Turkish counterpart to come to Armenia for the first soccer match.
For its part, Russia has openly expressed its support for the Protocols, with many analysts pointing out that it would be the main beneficiary of potential energy and transportation projects between Armenia and Turkey. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Grigori Karasin, was recently quoted as saying, “The Russian Inter RAO EES Company, which has energy facilities in Armenia, is exporting electricity to Turkey and the Russian Railway CJSC is ready to ensure uninterrupted rail communication between the two countries through the Dogukapy-Akhuryan checkpoint.”[12] Interestingly enough, two of the main initial projects expected to develop following the implementation of the Protocols are the sale of Armenian electricity to Turkey and the opening of joint railroad transportation—both of which are Armenian industries dominated by Russia.
The Path Forward
Of course, the West is also keen to see rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey. The heavy dependence Armenia has on Western loans and the desire to deflect attention away from the state’s crackdowns of March 1 is surely another motivation for Armenia’s pursuit of the Protocols.
Yet, blame for the Protocols cannot be laid at the door of foreign pressure (whether from Russia, Turkey, or the West). As Armenia’s Foreign Minister himself explained, “All states except for one or two supported the process and did not pressure us. It was Armenia’s initiative. We reached the agreement jointly with Turkey.”[13] The responsibility, thus, lies with the ruling elite in Armenia. These elite hold the reigns of power in the country and have obvious motivations for seeing the Turkish blockade lifted despite its costs.
In the end, the Protocols and the ensuing establishment of relations between Armenia and Turkey are a direct reflection of the interests of this tiny set of powerbrokers within Armenia.
The question, then, becomes how can the people act to prevent the ruling class from negotiating away Armenian national rights? The answer to this question lies partly in the international public opposition against the Protocols witnessed in recent months.
The unprecedented wave of mass demonstrations organized against the Armenian government pointed to a potential constraint on government decision-making. Hence, the public awareness raised against the Protocols, the delay by Nalbandian during the signing ceremony in Zurich, and President Sargsyan’s televised public address hours before the signing were a direct consequence of people taking to the streets in Yerevan and capitals throughout the world.
To date, these demonstrations have been the most serious disruption to the Armenian government’s plans for pushing through the Protocols. Indeed, the constant secrecy, media control, and deceptive statements issued by the government indicate their concern over the Armenian public’s negative reaction to their policies.
By putting into question the reality of the Armenian Genocide through a so-called historical commission, recognizing the existing illegitimate border that forfeits legal claims to the Armenian homeland, and compromising Armenia’s ability to defend the freedom of Artsakh, the Protocols pose a grave threat to the Armenian Cause—a cause considered to be paramount in the hearts and minds of Armenians around the world.
However, protests and negative opinion alone are likely not to be enough to stop the regime from ratifying the agreements. Public opposition must be translated into serious organization and concerted action in order to raise the costs high enough to be heeded by the administration in Yerevan. The system of centralized, elite power in Armenia must be checked by a vigilant and organized populace in order to restrain the wreckage of the self-interested schemes of the oligarchic elite.
The Diaspora has a special role to play in this battle. Through its relative freedom and more abundant resources, it has an important obligation to stand in support of those in Armenia who are genuinely struggling to create a more just and equitable future in the Homeland. As in the past, only by coming together collectively and reaching beyond artificial divisions will the Armenian people succeed in defending their pannational interests.
===================================
SOURCES:
[1] “Yerevan Survey Finds Majority Opposed to Protocols,” ArmInfo, September 29, 2009.
[2] Ara Nranyan, “Neoliberalism and Armenia: 18 Years of Integration with Capitalism,” presentation delivered at the 2009 Armenians and Progressive Politics conference in Glendale, CA
[3] Marianna Grigoryan, “Is Yerevan Caught in a Trade Trap?” Eurasianet, October 5, 2009. See also Hasmik Hambardzumian, “Armenians Wary of Turkish Trade,” Asia Times, September 29, 2009.
[4] “Opening of Border with Turkey Will Devastate Armenian Businesses,” PanArmenian.net, September 25, 2009. See also the thorough, 192-page study commissioned by the ARF Bureau on the economic impact of opening the border: Mher Dzadourian, Pavel Hovhannisan, and Albert Babayan, “Economic-Trade Issues Surrounding the Opening of the Armenia-Turkey Border,” June 2009, Yerevan.
[5] Gayane Abrahamyan, “Parliament Debates Diplomatic Normalization with Turkey,” Eurasianet, October 1, 2009. For a background on Ayvazyan’s interests in the mining industry, see Edik Baghdasaryan, “Vardan Ayvazyan’s Business Project,” Hetq, April 2, 2007.
[6] Despite the constant propaganda meted out to the contrary, people within Armenia consistently express their support for the cause of Genocide recognition and reparations from Turkey. See Serouj Aprahamian, “Armenia vs. Diaspora: The Myth of Diverging Interests Over the Genocide,” Haytoug, Spring 2009, 6-9. In the most recent opinion poll taken after the announcement of the Protocols, 52.4% of Yerevan residents rejected the terms of the agreements and 41% insisted that they want the Turkish-Armenian border to remain closed.
“Poll Finds Turkey Deal Unpopular in Yerevan,” Asbarez, October 19, 2009.
[7] Hayrapetyan owns several businesses and is the Chairman of the Armtobacco Company. Most recently, he took ownership of the Bjni Mineral Water Factory in a controversial deal following the original owner’s (oligarch Khachatur Sukiasyan) fall out with the government over his support of Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his alleged role in the March 1st events. See Gayane Mkrtchyan, “The Politics of Table Water: ‘National Treasure’ Bjni Changes hands in Disputed Sale,” Armenia Now, September 2, 2009.
[8] See Ian Bremmer and Cory Welt, “Armenia’s New Autocrats,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 8, 3, July 1997, 77-91.
[9] Marianna Grigoryan, “Armenia, Turkey Put Differences Aside for Soccer,” Eurasianet, September 5, 2008.
[10] “Armenian Opposition Leader Backs President on Turkey,” RFE/RL, November 12, 2009.
[11] Town Hall Meeting on Pan-Armenian Challenges. November 19, 2009. Encino, CA. Personal notes.
For a more historical perspective of this same phenomenon, we are reminded of the following quote from Armenian revolutionary hero, Aram Manukian: “That [exploitative] class is the capitalist class, which by descent is Armenian but in fact serves as the defender of foreign and Russian interests. They pretend to pose as the leaders of our people, but they consider Armenians to be only a pedestal under Russian tutelage for them to use to advance a more vibrant life. This class has turned into a threat to the Armenian people’s unity.
They have become bait for our neighbors to use against us. They have become a ‘fishing hook’ in the hands of the Russians with which to ‘catch’ Armenians. Although they may possess Armenian names, this class is, in fact, our enemy.” Roupen Der-Minassian, Memoirs of an Armenian Revolutionary, Vol. 2.
[12] “Russia to Support Armenia-Turkey Ties With Economic Projects,” Asbarez, November 4, 2009.
[13] “Nalbandyan Does Not Feel ‘Embarrassed and Insulted’”, News.am, October 30, 2009.
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14.2.10
3013) Report On Armenian Terrorism And JCAG Terrorist Hampig Sassounian
I. Introduction
II. Summary and Analysis
III. History of Armenian Terrorism
IV. Comments on the Offense
V. Brief Chronology of Armenian Terrorism, Hate Crimes and Ethnic Harassment Having A North American Component: 1973 - Present
VI. Detailed Chronology of Armenian Terrorism, Hate Crimes and Ethnic Harassment Worldwide: 1973 - Present . . .
Click Here For The direct link To The Report On Armenian Terrorism And JCAG Terrorist Hampig Sassounian
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13.2.10
3012) Armenian Rebellion: Feilding Star, 5 Sep 1905
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Kindly Contributed by Mustafa Balkaya
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3011) Turks Were Defeated By The Armenian Army: NYT 29 Jun 1918
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Kindly Contributed by Mustafa Balkaya
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3010) Armenian Priests Acted As Guides For Russian Army To Get To Van: Evening Post 9 Dec 1914
Kindly Contributed by Mustafa Balkaya
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3009) Armenian Students Join Russian Army In Caucasus : Evening Post 4 Nov 1914
Kindly Contributed by Mustafa Balkaya
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10.2.10
3008) Conference Notes: Turkish–Armenian Relations: London School of Economics: 29 Jan 2010
A CONFERENCE ON ‘TURKISH – ARMENIAN RELATIONS’
29 January 2010, 6 pm
London School of Economics, London WC2B 4JF
GUEST SPEAKERS
Prof. Türkkaya Ataöv
"What Really Happened on April 24, 1915?"
Asst Prof Bestami Sadi Bilgiç
"The Question of “Genocide” in Turkish Foreign Policy: The Cases of Armenians, Pontic Rums and Assyrians"
Chaired By Dr Andrew Mango
The Way Forward
Organised by THE FEDERATION OF TURKISH ASSOCIATIONS UK
www.turkishfederationuk.com
This conference has been organised in the memory of 34 Turkish diplomats and other innocent victims who were murdered by various Armenian terrorist groups between 1973 and 1985. Most of the perpetrators have never been brought to justice, and of the few that were, only some were imprisoned and given very light sentences.
Summary
The Federation of Turkish Associations UK held a conference at the London School of Economics (LSE) in memory of the Turkish diplomats killed by Armenian terrorists between 1973 and 1985. The conference titled "Turkish-Armenian Relations" was chaired by Dr Andrew Mango and the guest speakers were Prof Turkkaya Ataov and Asst. Prof Bestami Bilgic.
The conference began with a one minute silence in memory of the murdered diplomats and was well attended by many diplomats, NGO representatives, academics and students including the Turkish Ambassador to the United Kingdom HE Yigit Alpogan, the Turkish Consul General Bahadir Kaleli, Turkish Military Naval Attaché Gp Captain Ozdem Kocer and the President of the Federation of Turkish Associations UK Sener Saglam. This was the fourth year this event has been held and has become an important calendar date for the Turkish community. The event was also attended by several members of the Armenian community.
Between 1973 and 1985, 110 armed attacks were carried out in 21 different countries by Armenian terrorist organisations, in which a total of 34 Turkish diplomats, 8 members of their immediate families and 4 bystanders lost their lives, and 15 Turks and 66 citizens of other nationalities were injured. . .
FTA UK’s opening speech:
Ambassador, Dear Guests, and Distinguished Panellists,
The Federation of Turkish Associations UK welcomes you to the 4th Memorial Conference in London, organised in the memory of 34 Turkish diplomats and other innocent victims who were murdered by various Armenian terrorist groups between 1973 and 1985. Most of the perpetrators of these terrible attacks have never been brought to justice, and of the few that were, only some were imprisoned and given very light sentences.
FTA UK is an umbrella organisation serving various needs of the Turkish community. We think the best way to solve these problems is through understanding and research. FTA UK condemns all forms of terrorism and wishes a peaceful and better world for all human beings regardless of their race, colour or religious beliefs.
Dear Guests,
May I invite everyone to stand for one minute’s silence in respect of the murdered Turkish diplomats and all the innocent lives lost during that terrible terrorist campaign?
---
Dear Guests,
On behalf of the Federation of Turkish Associations in the UK I would like to thank everybody here for attending this evening.
Now, I would like to leave the floor to our chair Dr Andrew Mango.
We wish everyone an informative conference.
Thank you!
Speakers’ Biographies
Dr Andrew Mango: Dr. Andrew Mango was born in 1926 in Istanbul, where he started his education at the English High School for Boys, going on to the School of Oriental and African Studies in London to study Classical Persian and Arabic. He received a PhD in 1955 for a thesis on the legend of Alexander in Persian Islamic poetry. He joined the External Services (now World Service) of the BBC in 1947, and was in charge of broadcasts in Turkish between 1958 and 1972, before being promoted as Head of the South European and then also of the French Language Services. After his retirement from the BBC in 1986 he has worked full-time as researcher, writer and consultant on modern Turkey.
Prof Türkkaya Ataöv: Türkkaya Ataöv is Professor Emeritus in International Relations at Ankara University, Turkey. He did his graduate work in the United States, where he received two MAs (NYU & Syracuse Univ.) and a PhD (1959, Syracuse Univ., NY). He taught at Ankara University for more than four decades and lectured in several universities abroad. He is the author of close to 140 books, a few hundred academic treaties, and a few thousand newspaper articles. His writings have been translated into 20 different languages. He has been elected to central executive positions of UN-related international organisations, dealing with racial discrimination, human rights, terrorism, nuclear war, and exchange of prisoners of war. Professor Ataöv published 80 books/booklets on the Armenian issue, was invited as "witness of authority" by the Paris court to the two trials (1984 and 1985) of Armenian terrorists, participated in the UN Geneva meetings (1985) of the Human Rights Commission on the Genocide Convention, and partook in several meetings of the European Parliament that dealt with the Armenian issue.
Dr Bestami Sadi Bilgiç: Dr. Bestami Sadi Bilgic is an Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University. Currently he is taking part in a research project on the Ottoman minorities at the Turkish Historical Society in Ankara. Dr. Bilgic’s research interests are Modern Greek History and Politics, Late Ottoman-Early Republican History and Minorities. Dr. Bilgic is a graduate of Bilkent University where he earned a B.A. in International Relations in 1997 and an M.A. in International Relations in 1999. After spending the academic year of 1999-2000 in Greece doing research on the history of Turkish-Greek relations, he went to the United States for his doctoral studies and in 2004 he got his PhD in the field of Modern History at the George Washington University. Dr. Bilgic has published on the history of Turkish-Greek relations, and Turkish Foreign Policy.
Opening remarks by Dr Andrew Mango
This meeting, like its predecessors, is being held to commemorate Turkish diplomats killed by Armenian terrorists between 1973 and 1985. The first to be murdered were the Turkish consul and his assistant in Los Angeles in January 1973 – thirty-seven years ago. Terrorism has since become so common that news of it is often reduced to statistics. But now and then the statistics come to life. For me the moment came when Armenian terrorists killed Necla, the wife of Zeki Kuneralp, the Turkish ambassador in Madrid. I got to know Necla Hanim and Zeki Bey well, during Zeki Bey’s two terms as ambassador in London. It so happened, that I called on Zeki Bey in Madrid a few months before his wife was murdered. The Turkish ambassador lived in an old Spanish mansion with large French windows opening to the garden.
As we had lunch, I asked Zeki Bey whether it was sensible to sit behind large panes of glass at a time when terrorists were shooting at Turkish diplomatic targets. He quoted Schiller to me: “The man who doesn’t know how to die, doesn’t know how to live.” He didn’t know that not he, but his wife was to be the next victim. A tragic irony marked the assassination. Zeki Bey’s father had been lynched by Turkish nationalists who loathed him for his criticism of Turkey’s resistance to the Allies after World War I, and called him “Artin Kemal”, “Kemal the Armenian”. The purpose of terrorism is to perpetuate hatred. Zeki Bey tried to prevent this by encouraging research into the long centuries of peaceful coexistence of Turks and Armenians. Our purpose here tonight should also be to prevent the perpetuation of ethnic hatred through the propagation of myths. Untruths – to use parliamentary language – are constantly being repeated. In the last few weeks, for example, articles I read about an exhibition of the American modernist painter Arshil Gorky, who was of Armenian origin, said that Gorky’s mother had died when the Armenians fled from the siege of Van, and that the Turkish army butchered 2 million Armenians in 1920. In fact there was no siege of Van by the Turks, but an Armenian rising in Van in 1915 which facilitated the capture of the city by the Russian army and resulted in the murder of many of the city’s Muslim inhabitants and the flight of the rest. Nor did the Turkish army kill 2 million Armenians in 1920. In fact there had been 1.5 million Armenians in the whole of Ottoman Anatolia when WWI started, and close on a million of them survived as refugees. What happened were four waves of ethnic cleansing by Armenians of Turks and of Armenians by Turks, which left more Muslims than Armenians dead, as the front moved west, then east twice before a frontier was finally drawn between Turkey and Armenia in December 1920. But I’m impinging here on the talk by our first speaker, Professor Türkkaya Ataöv of Ankara University, who has devoted years of study to the tragic history of Turkish-Armenian relations. His subject tonight is the deportation of Armenians by the Ottoman authorities in 1915 – what lay behind the decision and what justification there was for it.
What Really Happened on April 24, 1915? Why and How?"
By Türkkaya Ataöv
Emeritus Professor of IR at Ankara University
My short talk may be summarized as follows: What really happened on April 24, 1915 and why? Please, do not expect me to summarize Armenian-Turkish relations throughout history, or review all the main points of what occurred just before, during and a little after the First World War. That cannot be done within a matter of about half an hour, the time allocated to me here. I have been studying this very subject, inter alia, since the early 1980s, and published so far 82 books and booklets on it.
I shall concentrate, instead, only (1) on the circumstances related to the Ottoman decision to relocate the greater part, though not all, of the Armenian population and also (2) on the arrests on the 24th of April, a date some Armenian circles are bringing pressure on some foreign parliaments to accept as a “genocide day”.
Almost all Armenian and many Western writers argue that the Armenian revolt at the beginning of the war posed no actual threat to the security of the Ottoman state or its armies facing the better mobilized Allies in several fronts. Apart from a rather long list of commentators, I recall, about a decade ago, a generalized statement by a Purdue University professor, Robert Melson, also the author of a book, in his own words, “on the origins of the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust”. He said, in my presence, that the Ottoman Armenians were calm, weak, gentle, peaceful, helpless, unprotected, unarmed, non-belligerent, good Christian, and totally vulnerable civilians, mostly old men, women and children, upon whom, he added, well-armed regular Ottoman troops ascended with their full force, killing perhaps millions. The Perdue University professor left the auditorium without listening to my reply. The extensive bibliography (of fifteen pages) in his book, by the way, refers to works on Indonesia, Cuba, Cambodia, or “Marx against the peasant”, with no mention of anything that I and my colleagues in Turkey have published on the theme of his book. I personally referred to a host of Armenian writers and their collaborators in many of my publications. My own book of bibliography contains no less than 403 such sources, with the majority of which I hardly agree.
Some other writers, including myself, conclude, on the other hand, that the Armenian armed rebellion constituted a great military danger. The Armenians were hard-working, innovative, enterprising, creative, and artistically-inclined, but hardly pacific and unarmed. The Turkish historian Dr. Erdal Ilter’s 300-pp bibliography on the same subject covers, not only printed Armenian works (almost as comprehensive as those by Hovannissian, Salmaslian and Vassilian, all Armenians), but also many Turkish treatises that offer vast amount of concrete evidence from archival material, reports, yearbooks, theses, dissertations, books, booklets, albums, and recorded witness accounts on Armenian assaults on Turkish and other Muslim quarters, villages and cities and their shedding of blood during war-time.
I am not going to utilize here Turkish material, which nevertheless must be treated of primary importance. If one wishes to establish the British policy in 1588 in respect to that country’s policy towards Spain just before the battle against the great Armada or in 1939 before the German attack on Poland, the first and foremost sources would be the Foreign Office archives. Likewise, if we want to find out what the Ottoman policies regarding the Armenians during the First World War, the rich Ottoman archives are equally indispensable.
However, I shall generally rely here on the evidence provided by third parties as well as by some crucial Armenian sources that should strike one as confessions. C.F. Dixon-Johnson, Edwards J. Erickson, Bernard Lewis, Guenter Lewy, Heath Lowry, Justin McCarthy, Nogales Mendez, Stanford J. Shaw, Masud Akhtar Sheikh and Samuel A. Weeds are some of the non-Turkish scholars. One may also remember the declaration, dated May 19, 1985, of more than fifty American academics, who drew the attention of the U.S. House of Representatives for a fairer treatment of the subject, stripped of anti-Turkish prejudice.
Perhaps the pioneer of an impartial approach was C.F. Dixon-Johnson’s book, courageously printed in the crucial year of 1916 (when the British and the Turks were fighting in Gelibolu, Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia), criticizing the propaganda that created more bias “against an already misjudged and badly maligned enemy.” He reminded the British readers how critical the situation was for Turkey, which faced “a matter of life and death.” He added that unless the danger was removed, “the Turkish army on the Caucasus would have been hopelessly cut off...”
Edward J. Erickson, an uncommon Western scholar, presents a comprehensive study on the connection between Armenian insurgency and Ottoman security, in a long article in War in History (2008). There exists, of course, ample evidence in the Ottoman archives on how heavily the Armenians had been armed and how some hundred thousands of Muslim civilians were killed. An average European and an American may be surprised to read in a recent (2003) British book (Dictionary of the First World War by Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, p. 34) that the “Armenian rebels slaughtered an estimated 120,000 non-Armenians while the Turkish Army was preoccupied with mobilization.” The authors add that the Armenian rebels took the Ottoman city of Van in April 1915 and proclaimed a provisional government there, and further that the rebels “resumed control in late 1917, killing perhaps another 50,000 non-Armenians.” These are British figures in a book printed in London. Erickson’s fact-finding research “seeks to inform the reader why the Ottoman military reacted in the manner it did.”
Armed Armenian insurrection directly affected the Ottoman 3rd Army in eastern Anatolia and the Ottoman 4th Army in the Syrian-Palestinian front and indirectly influenced but certainly perturbed the position of the Ottoman 6th Army in Mesopotamia. The logistical resupply links of the latter were tied up with the network of the first two armies. The soldier who fights at the front does not carry with himself his whole food and ammunition for the entire duration of the war years. Ovens and bakeries for all kinds of food, fodder for animals (horses, mules, camels and oxen), ammunition and munitions, field hospitals and tents, doctors and medicine, veterinary stations, repair shops, supply depots, basic training facilities, labour and transportation units, wagons and similar support groups were all situated in some hundreds of kilometres behind the fronts. The Ottoman state having suffered through the Tripolitanian (Trablusugarb) War (1911) against Italy and two Balkan Wars (1911-12) opposing the coordinated attacks of Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, was consequently in very short supply of food, ammunition and medicine. Its stockpiles were about half of the minimum of the other belligerents. Its railways, built by foreigners for the latter’s economic profits, were not designed to serve Ottoman mobilization and supply centres. There were even two uncompleted gaps at Pozanti and Osmaniye. Animal-drawn movement was the main transportation system on immeasurable-looking roads that ran from Sivas to Erzurum and from Diyarbakir to Van.
When the armed hostilities actually started between the Turks and the invading enemies, not only ammunition had to be rushed to the fronts, but also thousands of wounded soldiers had to be carried to the hospitals at the rear. The Ottoman 3rd Army had suffered losses especially at Sarikamis in the east and the 4th Army had to retreat to the Sinai and Palestine following an unsuccessful assault on the Suez Canal. By the Spring of 1915, the 3rd Army had lost half of its men as dead, wounded and POWs, and two-thirds of its animals.
Wide and frequent guerrilla actions and combat operations of armed Armenians in Russian, British and later in French forces were of crucial importance under the circumstances. Quite contrary to the mainstream but arbitrary assertion that the Ottoman Armenians were only an unarmed peaceful lot that had not touched a weapon, two reports submitted by Armenian-Americans to the US Government, later printed in book form in 1924 and 1926, explicitly state (respectively) that “200,000 Armenians fought as independent units or in the Allied ranks” and “more than 200,000 of them fought” on the side of Turkey’s enemies during war time. Consequently, the single-sentence statement of a British professor (David Marshall Lang) in a compendium on the Armenians, that these people “were not all angels” is very much a biased understatement.
Bogos Nubar, the head of the Armenian National Delegation at Versailles (1919) categorically stated, in a letter addressed to the French Foreign Minister, that the “Armenians, since the beginning of the war, had been belligerents.” The Russian Tsar, the Prime Ministers of the Allied Powers and their generals on the battlefield acknowledged the indispensable Armenian armed support. The long list of such confessions and appreciations includes messages of gratitude of Tsar Nicholas the Second, the Russian commanders in the Caucasus (for instance, Count I.I. Vorontsov-Dashkov, Generals Loris Melikoff and Terkhougasoff), D. Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, A. J. Balfour, J. Bryce, General E.H.H. Allenby, 116 members of the French Parliament, and many others.
The commanding officers of the Armenian insurgents and war historians of Armenian origin conceded, and even took pride, that they had resorted to arms against the Turks during the war. The title of a post-war book by Armen Garo (Gareguine Pasdermadjian), the former Armenian deputy in the Ottoman Parliament in Istanbul but later a prominent general of the insurgents, asserted for obvious reasons that the Armenians were “A Leading Factor in the Winning of the War.” General Andranik Ozanian, who had led an Armenian contingent in the Bulgarian Army and against the Turks during the Balkan Wars, later joined the Russian forces with his men. Similar armed units, under Dro, Hamazasp and Keri, were ready to move into Erzurum. None other than Samson Harutunian, the president of the Armenian National Bureau, appealed to the Russian Tsar assuring him of their loyalty and adding that they wished to see “the Russian flag wave freely over the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus”.
The Armenians took possession of the ancient city of Van in order to open the way into the interior of Anatolia. Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the US Ambassador reported then that 25,000 armed insurgents had attacked the Muslim quarters causing the inhabitants of the latter to flee for safety. Similar incidents occurred in the neighbouring cities, where thousands of guns, tons of dynamite, bulletins, posters, maps, foreign currency and ciphered messages in Armenian, Russian and French were found in Armenian homes, work places, churches, schools, and bank safes. There were numerous massacres of isolated Muslim villagers by armed Armenians, the Ottoman gendarmerie were attacked openly and frequently, assassinations were carried out, telegraph poles were cut, and roads blocked. The Ottoman functionaries, who collected guns, not only in the eastern Anatolian towns and villages of Askale, Bayburt, Bitlis, Elazig, Erzincan, Kayseri, Malatya, Mus, Sivas, Urfa or Aleppo, but also in Amasya and Adapazari (the latter just next to the capital city of Istanbul), knew that insurgency was worsening considerably.
Bogos Nubar, in a letter dated April 17/30, 1915, and addressed to the Armenian Catholicos of the Adana (Cilicia) region, advised “unified rebellion of the Armenians against the Turkish authorities wherever possible.” The same Armenian leader, in a communiqué sent to Lieut.-General Sir John Maxwell, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in Egypt, assured him to rely on “25,000 Armenian insurgents in Cilicia and on the 15,000 more to come from nearby provinces...to pave the way for the Allies to land forces.” He added that with such a force, they could occupy Musa Dag, Cebel-i Akra, Dört Yol, Iskenderiye, the Beylan Pass, Hacin, Sis, and the like, and that they “could cut the telegraphic wires, destroy railway tracks, blow up bridges, and thus interrupt the enemy’s communication lines” to such an extent that “the Turks will not be able to use their forces against them throughout the winter.” The 4th Army commanders were deeply concerned over the possibility of a concerted Anglo-French amphibious invasion of the Mersin coast, which was already bombarded from the sea several times.
As the Armenian war historian Gen. Gabriel Gorganian recorded in his series of articles in the Boston-based Armenian Review (1967-70), the Armenians fought (as easily comprehensible from the very title of that series) certainly not against the Allies or even the Germans, but against the Turks. The Ottoman leadership knew that their local forces were inadequate to meet the growing threat. The powers that the Turks were fighting in several fronts were in direct contact with the Armenians for coordinated military operations against the common enemy. Initially the 41st Infantry Division and later the 23rd and the 44th Infantry Divisions were forced to abandon their original defence positions and move towards the insurgency areas.
The Ottoman decision-makers, obviously, reacted to an actual internal threat. They had to solve an acute military problem that threatened the security and the total operations of three full-fledged armies in eastern and southern Anatolia. Their reaction was a response to a fast-growing threat. There is no evidence of a premeditated plan of extermination. They initially considered the removal of the Turkish and other Muslim civilians who were running away, in pitiful conditions, from renewed Armenian attacks. The Turks also entertained the idea of exchanging the Muslim minorities in the Caucasus with those Armenians who would rather live in Russia. But when they finally decided on the removal of the bulk of the Armenians principally from the battle zones to the safer areas in the southern territories of the Ottoman state, the military and the civilian leadership knew, via the information gathered from the German General Staff, that the Spanish had already relocated the Cubans in 1898 and that the British had done the same to the Boers and the Blacks in South Africa after the Boer Wars. Moreover, the Turks themselves had temporarily removed groups of the ethnic Bulgarian and Greek minorities in Thrace during the Balkan Wars (1912-13) and the small Greek minority in Gelibolu during the combined Anglo-French assault on the Dardanelles in April 1915. In both cases, these minorities were sent to the resource-rich Aegean region, where they lived rather comfortably and survived.
The first move of the Ottoman Interior Minister (Talât Bey) came on April 24, 1915, when he sent a circular to 14 provinces and 10 counties ordering the termination of the activities of the Armenian revolutionary committees. As well analyzed by Yusuf Sarinay, who reproduced genuine Ottoman documents on those arrested that day, the date in question was destined to become the “Genocide Day” for the Armenians in diaspora. The individuals taken into custody on April 24 were believed to be the master-minds behind the massacre of the Muslims in the east. One reason for the haste was the alarm caused by the suspicion, originally expressed by the German Ambassador in Istanbul, that the Armenians might carry out a series of bomb attacks on April 27, during the anniversary ceremonies of Sultan Mehmet Resat’s accession to the throne.
It was again on April 24, 1915, that 235 high-brows, out of 77,735 Armenians living in Istanbul, were taken out of their homes and offices and moved to Çankiri, a central Anatolian town in the north of Ankara. Although much higher figures are given in various Western sources, which also generally assert that “they were shot” immediately or on their way to a new place, none were killed by the state. Two of them were murdered, however, on personal initiative, and the culprits were summarily tried and executed for manslaughter.
The arrested Armenians were distributed to the homes of the local residents, but were told that they could go out, sit in the cafés, and walk in and around the city but should report to the police station once every 24 hours. They could apply (so did Arsak, the son of Mardiros, and Arsak Diradorian) for daily payments from a special Interior Ministry fund. Perhaps unexpectedly, 44 of them escaped; no less than 14, who proved that they were Armenians but foreign (American, Russian, Iranian, and Bulgarian) nationals, were simply deported. Some (like Vartabet Gomidas) were let go for the need of medical attention (eventually to Vienna in the case of Gomidas). Some were pardoned and allowed to go back to Istanbul or to other cities such as Eskisehir. Some (like Dr. Allahverdian and Hayik Tiryakian) had been mistakenly arrested and consequently released. No charges could be brought on 35 of them and were set free. The rest were sent either to Ayas near Ankara or to Zor in the south. Those whose custody continued were all members of the executive boards of the Armenian Hinchak and the Dashnak Parties, which may now be better described as terrorist organizations in terms of their programs and activities. Some (like Akrik Keresteciyan), who were transferred to Zor, were soon released, however. Dikran Bagdikian, a Dashnak member, died on March 9, 1918, in Ayas, apparently on account of natural causes.
But Krikor Zohrab and Seringulan Vartkes were murdered by two individuals (Ahmed the Circassian and Halil of Galata), both of whom had no official connections whatsoever. They were caught by the Turkish police, tried and found guilty by an Ottoman court, and duly executed by state functionaries.
Most of the Ottoman Armenian population, especially those near the war fronts, were moved towards the south. Catholic and Protestant Armenians, civil servants in the state bureaucracy, army personnel functioning as officers, soldiers, doctors, and medics, some tradesmen, some construction workers and foremen, those working in the Ottoman Bank, Tobacco Administration, and in the foreign embassies and consulates, orphans and widows, the sick, the disabled, and the like were all exempt, together with the members of their families. The Prime Minister’s directive, dated May 30, 1915, set the general guidelines, which included orders for their safety, funds for their upkeep, work equipment in new places and the safekeeping of abandoned property. It was especially underlined that this was certainly not an order for their extermination and that those guilty of attacks and neglect for their protection would be immediately court-martialled and punished severely.
The texts of these orders and their translations into the leading European languages are available in the foreign archives. Attacks and dereliction, in some cases, nevertheless occurred. As indicated in some Armenian and third party reports, the great majority reached their destinations, sometimes in orderly fashion and at times exhausted, but alive.
The Ottoman courts tried 1,974 individuals in 1915-16, and gave 67 capital punishments, 524 imprisonment sentences and 63 harsh captivity verdicts (for solitary confinements). Some court judgements involved minor misdeeds, such as “purchase of an Armenian unmovable at a low-price” or for “an act contrary to good behaviour.” The fascist regimes in Europe, decades later, never displayed such open-mindedness and threw the book at their own men for mistreating a group proven or at least suspected for cooperation with the invading enemy.
However, court judgements in Istanbul, the Ottoman capital occupied at the end of the war, call for an entirely different evaluation. The sine qua non of a court of law is its independence. Although the Nazi racists and the Japanese militarists deserved punishments, even the Nurnberg and the Tokyo trials were the products of the victors’ justice. Let us imagine, for the sake of the argument, that a tribunal had existed in 1918 like the International Criminal Court of today, with judges and prosecutors elected by all the contracting states by secret ballot, representing the principal legal systems, equitable geographical representation and gender balance. Had both the Armenians and the Turks applied to that court with evidence and witnesses, but with no political influence from outside, the verdict would probably have been that groups of Armenians and Muslims, after centuries of peaceful coexistence, had killed each other, the sword dangling sometimes more over one side and at times over the other. On the basis of bloodshed on both sides, no independent court could have then decided that one group represented the victims only, and the other the victimizers. Let us remember at this point that the courts in occupied Istanbul did not try those Armenians for the extensive crimes that they had committed.
The years between 1914 and 1922 were also the period during which all the inhabitants of Asia Minor had to live through –or die- because of unhealthy war conditions including the spread of epidemics. The mere mention of unsanitary predicaments involving the dissemination of fatal bacteria and virus, or even of the far-flung hunger and unavoidable misery of so many consecutive years is almost instantly chastised as outright propaganda intended to downgrade the actual loss of Armenian lives. The truth is that Armenian (and Muslim) lives were reduced on account of many reasons, including voluntary or enforced outward migration, attacks on some people, fatalities brought about by almost a dozen wars in which the Armenians participated, general war circumstances, and rampant epidemics.
During the First World War, the British lost 120,000, the French 179,000, the Germans 166,000, and the Russians 395,000 soldiers, solely on account of diseases, according to their own official statistics. Casualties among the Armenians and Turks far exceed the figures that all interested parties are prepared to accept. Even Damat Hafiz Hakki Pasa (The Commander of the Turkish Eastern Front, who happened to be the son-in-law of the Ottoman Sultan), the German General Colmar von der Goltz (the Commander of the Ottoman Army in Iraq), and Sir Frederick Maude (the Commander of the British Expeditionary Force in Iraq) lost their lives on account of cholera or typhus. There is no doubt that the Armenian people also suffered, not only in 1915-16, but also during the last two decades of the Ottoman Empire. But it was part of a tragedy that engulfed all the citizens. As far as the general war conditions were concerned, the heaviest toll hit the Turkish soldiers and civilians.
Armenian-Turkish controversy proves once more that coming to terms with the past needs to be an exercise in good faith, free from domestic and international politics. Historical analysis should be all-inclusive, based on research and solid evidence. The blame cannot be put on the shoulders of a whole people, or on the future generations. One cannot reactivate the out-dated theologian concept of “original sin” and deduce from it the obsolete assertion that the new generations are born with guilt for all. Justice abhors double standards. In a book printed in Chicago in 1896, just four years before the world entered the 20th century, an American Protestant missionary (A.W. Williams) and the president of the Armenian Patriotic Alliance in New York (M.S. Gabriel) stated that the Turk was “a wild beast to be caged.” The authors begged “pardon of the hounds, hyenas...and all other wild beasts for using their names...” to describe...the ferocity of Kurd or Turk.” Nor can one explain past events via political organs that act like Orwellian ‘truth ministries’. All sources must be examined without preconceptions or prejudice. The gates of research on the Armenian issue is not closed yet. One cannot argue like a prosecuting attorney seeking to suppress information unfavourable to one’s position. One cannot rely on wartime propaganda and politically and racially motivated reports, reflecting the feelings or experience of one side only. The outstanding British historian Arnold J. Toynbee had described Wellington House, the war-time British propaganda center, where he had worked as a young scholar and brought out the controversial book on the Armenian issue, as a “mendacity bureau.”
The many facets of truth will appear only when an inquiring mind examines all the interpretations. That is why the British Government today repeatedly states that it cannot define the events of 1915 as genocide. That is why the spokesman of the Office of the UN Secretary General categorically declared that the “United Nations have never approved nor supported a report that describes the Armenian experience as ‘genocide’”.
Probing into the past cannot be restricted only to a nation, region, date, or to an ethnic/religious group. No nation can demand from another to examine solely the past of the latter. No nation may be singled out by others and made a scapegoat. No nation may be forced to serve the interests of another under the label of “coming to terms with its past.” If need be, the records of all countries, without any exception, and no veto privilege operating in favour of anyone of them, should be open for close scrutiny. If all agree to do so without exception, some of us will not be surprised when the Turks come out among those with the whitest record.
If my presentation does not conform to the mainstream interpretations, I may remind my colleagues that scholarship is like a building that needs continuous repair. One cannot have the frame of mind of the past European generations most gullible and thirsty for stories of blood-curdling atrocities, and be satisfied with them. It is the duty of the academic people to question the validity of the mainstream ideas. This is what I have basically attempted to do. 
Excerpts from Dr. Bestami S. Bilgic’s talk at LSE
“Thanks to the Armenian terrorist activities in the 1970s and 80s against Turkish diplomatic representatives and their families around the world and to the efforts of Armenian Diaspora in Europe, the UK, and Americas which has relentlessly worked for recognition of an “Armenian genocide” by countries with most of which Turkey has had close political and economic relations, the issue of “genocide” has become one of the foreign policy items of the Turkish Republic…”
“… a “genocide” is not something for parliaments to decide. A genocide verdict can be given only by an international court particularly designated for “genocide” issue. In some countries, interpretation of the events of 1915-16 as “not genocide” has been labeled as “denial” of a “truth” and thus unlawful…”
“…Recognition of the events of 1915-16 as “genocide” by national parliaments has been one of the steps for the Armenian genocide claimers in their way to have Turkey convicted for committing the first genocide in the twentieth century, which is itself legally problematic given the fact that the Genocide Convention was signed after the alleged genocide was perpetrated…”
“…Despite close French-Turkish relations especially in terms of large French investment in Turkey and handsome contracts for French companies in Turkish defense industry, the French parliament with active lobbying of the Armenian community passed a resolution in 2001 that recognized the events of 1915-16 as “genocide”. In 2006 the French lower chamber passed another resolution that would make the “denial” of the so-called genocide a crime.
Actually, already in 1995 Prof. Bernard Lewis was convicted by a French court since he said that there was no Armenian genocide. Of course, the French parliament’s decision was taken with political concerns. And the French court’s decision can easily be interpreted as a violation of freedom of expression in a EU country, which has claimed to be the ‘champion’ of ‘liberté’ since the eighteenth century…”
“… Genocide is worst of all crimes… The odd thing in this entire affair is that historians and lawyers, who perhaps of all must be best equipped, to shed light on what happened, are silenced by the Armenian genocide claimers and some national parliaments who are endorsing their claims…”
“…Turkish side calls onto all countries including Armenia for the establishment of a historical commission that will discuss the events of 1915-16, while Armenian side and its third party supporters declare a historical event historically non-debatable…”
“… Turkish-Armenian relations did not start in 1915. It did not start in 1815, either.
Perhaps not even 1215 is the starting date. Therefore, one needs to put aside the “genocide vs. denial” dichotomy in order to make a scholarly evaluation of the Turkish-Armenian relations in general and the events of 1915-16 in particular…”
“…Research on the events of 1915-16 is still going on. It is not complete, yet, if it will ever be. But, it will come close to completion some time. Be that as it may, it is constantly being marred by political decisions and considerations…”
“..All parties interested in the events of 1915-16 need to hear what others have to say…”
“…If one considers national parliaments’ recognition of the so-called Armenian genocide and thus putting pressure on Turkish foreign policy makers to recognize the “genocide”, and then compensate claimers in cash and territory a success of the Armenian Diaspora, then this success seems to have inspired other anti-Turkish groups in the world. Pontian Greek and Assyrian groups as well have been putting forth their own genocide claims lately…”
“… “Genocide” issue has become one of the tools through which anti-Turkish groups in the world have been attempting to apply pressure upon Turkey… It is a low-cost policy, for the Diaspora communities are using the “fire range” of their host countries, which they deem, enjoy a better range at Turkey than Turkey has at them…” CLOSING REMARKS BY DR ANDREW MANGO
Turks and Armenians are not doomed to eternal hostility. The two communities lived together in peace and amity for centuries – roughly from the conquest of Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century to the Congress of Berlin in 1878. The Armenians were so closely integrated into Ottoman society that the German military adviser von Moltke described them as “baptised Turks”. Most of them spoke Turkish as their mother tongue; they were active as merchants, craftsmen and intellectuals in the development of the Turkish theatre, in publishing, in promoting relations with Europe. There were Armenian civil servants, ambassadors and an Armenian minister in the Ottoman government right up to 1914. Then in the space of less than forty years – between 1878 and 1915 – the ideology of nationalism wrenched the two communities apart. Today, a small Armenian community continues to thrive in Istanbul, and thousands of illegal Armenian immigrants are finding employment in Turkey.
If the past is any guide, and as the admittedly small-scale current coexistence shows, amity between Turks and Armenians is still possible if not within the same state than across frontiers as good neighbours. A few months ago, a protocol was signed between the foreign ministers of Turkey and Armenia. It provided for the establishment of full diplomatic relations, the opening of frontiers, and the formation of a scientific commission of historians to establish an agreed version of past events. This agreement which was widely welcomed in the USA and the EU is today threatened. The Armenian Constitutional Court has ruled that first, there should be no linkage between the opening of frontiers and a solution of the dispute about Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and that, second, before historians are asked to examine the record, Turkey should recognise that Armenians had been subjected to genocide. The two demands negate the protocol. Unless the Armenians at least begin to withdraw from the large slice of Azeri territory they occupy in and around Karabakh, Turkey cannot allow the exploitation of past tragedies in order to perpetuate a current one, for, let us not forget that close to a million Azeris have fled from the territory now occupied by the Armenians.
Secondly, a commission of historians must be allowed to study the past without any preconditions. The best way to break the deadlock is to press on with academic research even if there is no agreed framework for it. On the other hand, the surest way to perpetuate hatred is to conduct propaganda campaigns, seeking to turn politicians into historians by demanding that parliaments should pronounce on historical claims. In any case, while deadlock persists the search for truth should continue, and every effort should be made to avoid stirring up inter-communal hatred. Our purpose tonight is, therefore, not to score points but to show that truth and reconciliation go together, and that Turkish-Armenian reconciliation cannot be founded on lies. Surely, people of good will cannot disagree on this point.
END
About FTA UK
The Federation of Turkish Associations UK (FTA UK) was formed in 2002 consisting of sixteen independent and diverse Turkish associations to bring together the voice of their members on common issues. The FTA UK represents a large proportion of the Turkish community which is estimated at nearly 500,000 ethnic Turks who live mainly in London and its surrounding areas and includes Turkish Cypriots.
The Federation’s main aims and objectives are; to bring together the Turks living in Britain in solidarity and strengthen their relationship; to help the community to integrate better within the British system whilst maintaining their own culture and identity; to find solutions to their common problems and protect their common interests; to promote and enhance the British - Turkish friendship and to share the Turkish culture and history.
The Federation carries out its duties completely independently without being influenced by any political party, ethnic influence, religion or any form of discrimination and in the interest of the British-Turkish Community. It is a non profit - non governmental organisation and acts as an umbrella organisation and communication vehicle for the whole community.
Contact FTA UK :
· E-mail: turkishfederationuk@yahoo.co.uk
· Post: FTA UK, 41 Camberwell Church Street, London SE5 8TR
· Telephone: + 44 (0)7788 908 803
Prepared by Servet Hassan
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7.2.10
3007) Comments On Harut Sassonuian’s Armenia-Diaspora Unity
I do not think that I should comment on any “family type topics of Armenians” since this is their own privacy and decision. However, being a close friend of at least Turkish Armenians, I could not help reading this article, which is nothing but a necklace of contradictions and self-admiration full of bullying!
I leave it to the Armenian diaspora readers, to weigh Sassounian’s directives versus realities.
The author, at the end of his article of Jan.7, 2010, had first buttered the Armenians of Armenia and ended his article with the following (empty) words of courage to serve as “his final solution or relief”!: 
Yet despite economic hardships and outside threats, Armenians’ will to survive is ingrained in their DNA! For several millennia, they have suffered occupation, plunder, wars, massacres, and even Genocide and have endured. Today’s difficulties will also pass…. Armenians will not only survive, but also thrive!
Now the very same author accuses the Armenian Government, as if they are a mandate of diaspora!.
Really I do not wish to interfere in “family or nation privacy” but cannot help myself of pinpointing my counter comments against itemized suggestions or directives since they do not speak trying.:
1. Armenian Government leaders should obtain advance permission from diaspora for any contacts they would make with other countries, and thus behave like “a good behaving children”.(!)
2. “Diaspora-wide Leadership”(?) should…etc! Is there an outside Diasporian Armenian Leadership elected under democracy with rights of sovereignty in the Republic of Armenia? When, How, Why?
3. Empty “ballast words” without any reason or meaning!
4. Armenian Government “can be held responsible for splits in diaspora disagreements”. (!)
5. Armenian President needs to get advice on critical matters from diaspora (and act obediently)!
6. Armenian Government should share her authority with diaspora on protocols or similar foreign affairs! Why? What will be the responsibility and liability of “diaspora experts”? Who are them? Who decides them to be true experts!
7. Armenian officials were totally wrong in agreeing on a historical committee, because the diaspora principle that “there is no need of any discussion for a topic known by overwhelming majority”(?) The truth is that diaspora and Armenian scholars very well know that they have no legal evidences!
The author, by his usual method of bullying or exaggerating, has increased the population of Armenia to 3 millions, when it is known to be very slightly over 2 millions. Likewise, the diaspora Armenian population estimated to be around 5 millions is doubled to 10 millions!
The author makes frequent reference to “Genocide” which is nothing but an unproven hearsay or fabrication, and also “restitution”, for which they even had a tax exemption law in California! Gentlemen, do not lie to your own people who trust you. By this time, if you have still not read the accord between USA and Republic of Turkey which started in 1934 and was settled by written agreement in 1937, then do not expose yourselves “as experts or advisers”! The blog site of Turkish Armenians is full of official irrefutable non-Turkish documentation. Turning your heads and logic elsewhere, will serve nothing, but loss of time and new frustrations. What more, I am shocked to read that Armenians of Armenia “will be hurting you if they do not follow your advices or interests”.
I want to hear it clearly if it is the Armenians of Armenia who need the philanthropic assistance and support since otherwise they are hurt or is it the Diaspora in need of the help coming from Armenia? What a comedy, what logic?
Sukru Server Aya
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3.2.10
3006) Turkey Changes Course On Armenia & Counter Comments
By Caleb Lauer & Counter Comments in Italic and Bold
Followed by The Truth Is Not In What The Armenians Say, But In What They Do Not Say by Ergun Kirlikovali
Feb 3 2010
ISTANBUL - Though genocide scholars around the world agree that more than one million Ottoman-Armenian civilians were deliberately killed during World War I when Turkish Ottoman authorities forced them to walk out of Anatolia into the Syrian desert, Turkey has always officially denied this was genocide. Ankara has insisted that a commission to study this tragic history be a pillar of its now fizzling peace deal with neighboring Armenia. .
The idea of the commission has caused much controversy. Armenia, bowing to Turkish pressure and eyeing the prospect of an open border with its much richer European Union-candidate neighbor, has committed itself to something that suggests the facts of the genocide are insufficiently known. But for Armenians, the genocide carried out against them is a fundamental aspect of their modern identity. And likewise for the Turks; denial of the genocide is intimately intertwined with the story of modern Turkey's founding in 1923.
The author is totally unaware of factual documented history and arrives to hearsay conclusions about “scholars around the world agree”, “more than one million Armenians were killed” and alike fabrications.
The author is cordially invited to read “some of the Armenian history” books in the free-E-library and acquaint himself with some reality written back in Oct.1915 by Reno Evening Gazette which he can find in p.662-663 of my book. The author is also advised to read the US RELIEF REPORT of 22.04.1922 which states that 1.414.000 Armenians were alive on 31.12.1921, and more over note from General Harbord’s report that it was “the Armenians doing many refinements of cruelty in large scale to Moslems and they did most of the damage to towns and villages”. Cheap words such as “denial” and alike do not serve as any logic justification, other than use of ballast literature by simple writers who think that the readers would swallow anything!
Suat Kiniklioglu, the governing AKP's (Justice and Development Party) deputy chairman of external affairs and spokesman for the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee, said in an e-mail that the Turkish government insisted on a historical commission to "have a fresh look at the evidence [and] documentation surrounding the unfortunate events of World War I. The events of 1915 cannot be understood without situating them in an appropriate historical context."
It is a mishap that such persons knowing nothing but a fraction of some reading, do the representation and speaking for the Republic of Turkey. His words are alike “ballast literature”.
This context, said Kiniklioglu, includes " ... the ethnic cleansing of millions of Turks and Muslims from the Balkans, the Caucasus, and other parts of the crumbling [Ottoman] empire". Many Armenians, genocide scholars and others say this just rationalizes denial of the genocide and is an extension of Turkey's policy of lobbying abroad to prevent its recognition. Some also say it is an affront to historical research and the lessons drawn from it.
Sir, do you have any valid documentation to put on the table? If yes, submit, if not stop the ballast literature “many genocide scholars”… To what extent you can depend on scholars that are paid/fed by certain institutions, where only a small section of the Armenian history books are read!
Roger W Smith, a former president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and current chairman of the academic board of directors at the Zoryan Institute in Toronto, wrote in a September 30, 2009 open letter to Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian that the proposed commission "in effect dismisses all of the extensive research that has already been conducted for decades and implies that none of it was impartial or scientific". He also wrote that genocide scholars have no confidence "that a politically organized commission would not compromise historical truth, especially considering the imbalanced power relations between Armenia and Turkey". He also argued such a commission would show "how easily genocide can be relativized, especially by the powerful".
But some doubt the commission will be effective enough to warrant fear. Cengiz Aktar, a retired United Nations official and now chair of the European Union Relations department at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, dismissed the idea that a commission was a threat, saying such a commission would have so little credibility, and would be so dysfunctional, it would be simply impracticable. "It is ridiculous to think for even a second that [such a] commission could even meet, let alone decide about anything [historical]."
Mr. Cengiz Aktar, like Taner Akcam are pipe blowers of genocide, they have done no reading of “complete documents available in English” and deny the thousands of Turkish archival documents. His past employment in United Nations, does not make him an arbiter, and international judge, other than a corner writer and frequent speaker on certain channels, in the same frequency of propaganda! Ask Mr. Aktar if he ever heard of my book, which has been laying in the library of his university and this blog site for over two years! Did he take the trouble to read the authentic documents in the E-library? How can you claim to be a scholar, when you are so biased and uninformed?
Any equally weighted, government-run commission, Aktar imagines, would consist of one side of "denialists" and one side of genocide scholars. "These guys are not capable of even shaking hands," he said.
Aktar is also the creator of an online "I apologize" proclamation addressed to Armenians, so far joined by more than 30,000 Turks. He suggested that unsealing relevant archives in Ankara, Jerusalem and Boston would be a more constructive goal of the commission.
Aktar is the creator of I apologize because his knowledge is crippled and moves on Zorian or diaspora leased crutches! By his evaluation Hrant Dink’s (regrettable murder) is a hero, even greater than Ataturk, but he fails to say that 100.000 Turks walked behind the funeral, in protest of this idiotic shameful murder. However, he never makes mention of over 250 acts of ASALA terrors over 80 deaths or the self-burning of Artin Penik in 1982, protesting the ASALA killings! Aktar is hosted in all meetings, workshops against Turkey and keeps away from meeting any other scholars or persons who disagree with him!
But the prospect of a commission has a significant inverse; it may be a sign of, and end up promoting, Turkey's increasing openness to a less categorical and dogmatic view of its own official history. Turkish schools teach that the genocide never happened; Turks who publicly say otherwise have risked prosecution by the state and vilification in the media.
Armenian diaspora or puppet government will never meet in any commission, because they know that they have no documents to lay on the table, other than plenty evidences of treason!
But the current AKP government, in power since 2002, has been steadily pushing the old guard - especially the military - out of the center of the Turkish state. With major electoral support, there is no doubt that the government's democratic reforms have helped it consolidate power; still, thanks in part to this new environment, many long-sacred taboos of Turkish public life are being challenged and more and more Turks, in newspaper articles, books, and academic conferences, have been questioning the conventional denialist view of the genocide.
Government’s democratic (?) reforms! Kiss my hand… and rid yourself from this “denial-mania” or similar ballast words meaning nothing!
Professor Taner Akcam of Clark University in Massachusetts, a leading genocide scholar and one of the few Turkish historians to unequivocally affirm the Armenian genocide, rejects the Turkish government's argument that more context is needed to understand what happened in 1915 and says Turkey must understand that the historical debate "is over". Still, Akcam argues that the significance of the moment should not be overlooked.
Another pipe blower, paid by Armenian family, originally fugitive of prison, had some schooling on sociology but all of the sudden has become an authority on history! Why not? This is his duty as “his master’s voice”! Mr. Akcam has created many fantasies and empty bragging but no documents whatsoever and stays away from any confrontation with any person that may not applaud him! Mr.
Akcam is a good example of travesty of scholarship based on presumptions but no concrete facts!
"Nobody understands enough the importance of Turkey's readiness for negotiations. For 100 years Turkey denies everything. And now after 100 years, Turkey officially says - 'OK, let's negotiate about our own history' ... There is something seriously changing in Turkey," he said.
"The Turkish republic was established by the same military and bureaucratic elite which organized the Armenian genocide," said Akcam. “We know [from historical study] that a change in the ruling elite is the precondition for facing history."
"There is a huge process of transition in Turkish society from an authoritarian system [of rule] to one more democratic and more European. And within this system, Turkey will, and has to, face its own history."
Mumbo-jumbo ballast words…
The Turkish government may use the commission as a "face-saving operation", that is, to minimize blame as much as possible while communicating unknown, and unwelcome, facts to the Turkish public, said Akcam. "After 100 years of denial, you cannot suddenly say: 'Yes, it was a genocide.' Or, 'Yes, it was a crime.' You need a transition."
There is no need for any commission, the documents are all sitting there on the internet but those who speak are so naïve that they speak without learning or knowing!
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during Armenia's war with Turkey's ally Azerbaijan. Once the Armenian and Turkish parliaments ratify the protocols signed by their foreign ministers last autumn in Switzerland, the two countries will open their common border and establish normal relations. (Though lately it seems Turkey is willing to let a dispute over the Armenian-controlled province of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan put the whole deal at risk.)
It is expected bureaucrats from Armenia, Turkey and Switzerland, which mediated the peace deal, will comprise the commission, and, according to the protocols, will carry out " ... an impartial scientific examination of the historical records and archives to define existing problems". Despite protests against the commission and other aspects of the peace deal, poor, land-locked Armenia has a clear interest in an open border with Turkey, which could join the European Union in the next decade.
In the end, however, Akcam believes real reconciliation between the two countries cannot come through commissions or legislation. He recalls the words of Hrant Dink, an Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor whose prosecution for comments made about Turkish-Armenian reconciliation made him a target of ultranationalists. He was assassinated outside his newspaper office in Istanbul on January 19, 2007.
a- Will Akcam and alike have the courage to sit at any debate or scholarly workshop table?
b- Why you repeat as a rhetoric Hrant Dink’s (only ONE yet shameful) murder but make no mention of the so many diplomats murdered by ASALA or watch the Video of Murat Topalian, their leader!
"My dear friend Hrant was always saying: when the Armenian and Turkish people come together, see each other, talk to each other, the genocide problem will be solved automatically."
Yes, Hrant Dink spoke the truth and Turkish Armenians are much alike and live in harmony until such time that outside trouble mongers step in. This blog site is full of many articles reflecting the outside intrusions and the on going friendship in Turkey, which the outsiders cannot understand because they are not from Anatolia, the same land who lived a thousand years in perfect harmony. Shame on those who distort this harmony to satisfy their egos or interests!
Caleb Lauer is a Canadian freelance journalist based in Istanbul.
Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd
The Truth Is Not In What The Armenians Say, But In What They Do Not Say by Ergun Kirlikovali
02 February 2010
Letters to the editor, writeto@atimes.com
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Re: “Turkey changes course on Armenia” by Caleb Lauer, ISTANBUL, Turkey, Asia Times Online, Feb 3, 2010; http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LB03Ak03.html . .
Caleb Lauer’s biased article (“Turkey changes course on Armenia”, Asia Times Online, Feb 3, 2010, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LB03Ak03.html ) is replete with falsifications, omissions, and errors. Reading this article, one would never know that Armenians took up arms against their own government, attacked the rear of their own army, terrorized their Muslim neighbors, joined the invading enemy armies, demanded territory for an apartheid (greater Armenia), and caused the death of 524,000 of their countrymen, women and children. One would never appreciate that the Tereset (temporary resettlement) was a wartime home security measure and that Turks were only defending their home in the face of brutal foreign invasions and equally savage Armenian nationalists and revolutionaries.
Caleb Lauer’s prejudice also shows in the selection of sources to validate claims of genocide; all other sources are ignored. Genocide scholars, for instance, is an Armenian invention created by the notoriously anti-Turkish Zoryan Institute in 1994. These genocide scholars are not even historians. Most are English teachers and sociologists. There are some psychologists and government majors among them. And seventy-five percent of the board of directors are ethnically Armenians. But they all like to pose like authorities in history which they absolutely are not. They vie for winning the confidence of their unsuspecting readers. What the Armenian claims lack in the credibility department, the Armenian lobby tries to fill the gap with new inventions like these so-called genocide scholars and other avenues like films, exhibits, and panels where only the Armenian side is represented and the Turkish side is censored. Anything to avoid history, primary sources, facts, peer review, and debate seem to be fine with the Armenian lobby. They think they are winning on the political side where opinions can be manipulated, political candidates, legislatures, and voters can be convinced without having to deal with legitimate, non-partisan historians and scholars driven by facts only.
Taner Akcam , the poster boy of sorts of the Armenian lobby, for instance, was exposed to be a paid Armenian agent. In a letter dated 17 January 2008, the University of Minnesota legal counsel stated that Akcam’s salary was funded by Cafesjian Foundation (an Armenian institution) and Zoryan Institute (also an Armenian institution.) What’s just as troubling is the fact that that letter said “…Dr. Akcam is currently employed by the University as a Research Associate in the College of Liberal Arts (CLA), Department of History. This is an annually renewable, Professional & Administrative ("P&A") position…” A few days after this letter was written, Akcam was spotted in New Orleans, presenting himself as “associate professor” in history to unsuspecting audiences. He was neither employed as a professor nor historian, as his PhD is in sociology. Is this important? It ought to be, in the name of truth. Why is he posing as a historian then if he is a sociologist? How did he become a professor when he arrived into the U.S. as only a visiting scholar attached to no university only about ten years ago? The more one digs, the more one finds the Armenian lobby lurking ominously underneath all this stink.
Whereas the facts are simple. Armenians revolted to establish an apartheid (i.e. greater Armenia) in Ottoman territories, when the motherland (the Ottoman Empire) was fighting for its survival against multi-front brutal invasions. The Ottoman Empire, as a home security measure, was left with no choice but to tereset (temporarily resettle) the treasonous elements to non-war zones of the empire (hence not even a deportation.) Measures were taken for security and safety of the groups teresetted, perhaps insufficient and at times ineffective, but without intent to destroy as claimed.
Unsubstantiated accusations such as race extermination or over 1.5 million Armenians stand short of truths and the U.S. state archives refute them openly because:
a- “American Military Mission to Armenia” (General Harbord) Report 1920 and Annex Report Nat. Archives 184.021/175 does not mention any “race extermination” but refers to “…refinements of cruelty by Armenians to Muslims…”
b- Joint US-Congress Resolution no. 192, April 22, 1922 relative to the activities of Near East Relief ending 31.12.1921, has unanimously resolved that a total of 1,414,000 Armenians were alive.
c- George Montgomery, a member of the US delegation at the Paris Conference, had presented a detailed tabulation in 1919, showing a total of 1,104,000 Armenians alive, apart from those who had already immigrated to other countries. ( 29 March 1919 report of the Paris Conference subcommittee on atrocities lists Armenian losses as “…more than 200,000…” Who may have jacked this number to the current 1.5 million? Take a guess!)
d- Reliable sources show that THE TOTAL ARMENIAN POPULATION in the Ottoman Empire was less than 1.3 MILLION ( and others saying up to a maximum of 1.5 million) and hence it would be Armenian falsifiers’ liability to defy and annul these official U.S. State Records. You think Armenian lobby can do that? That is, use current pro-Armenian politicians to void the records of the U.S. Congress of 1919 with bogus resolutions?
In case you missed it, it bears repeating: these are the U.S. Congress records of 1919, solidly laying down the situation as it was back then. Can the Armenians change them today?
Unfortunately yes, if “genocide scholars” like Akcam, “journalists” like Lauer, and bogus Hitler quotes fabricated by the ever resourceful Armenian lobby are not confronted by truth-seeking, dispassionate, and genuine scholars… and still closed archives of Armenia and Armenian church(as) are not opened…
If Armenia, the tiny, land-locked, poverty-stricken, violent, and corrupt country, wants to avoid bankruptcy and famine, which would turn it into a distant, inaccessible, and irrelevant province of Russia, then Armenia should stop the military occupation of Azeri lands (including Karabakh), allow the return home of one million Azeri refugees, and agree to opening and scholarly studying all relevant archives of WWI era soon. Nothing short of that will save Armenia… and the time is ticking!
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Some useful reference sites:
www.turkla.com
www.ethocide.com
www.ataa.org
www.tallarmeniantale.com
www.historyoftruth.com
www.turkishjournal.com
www.turkishny.com
www.mediawatchnow.com
www.turkishalert.com
Some PDF Documents:
Armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/10/2635-genocide-lies-need-no-archives.html (Part 1 & 2)
Armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/10/2635-genocide-lies-need-no-archives.html (Part 3)
Armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2009/04/2813-conditions-in-near-east-report-of.html (General Harbord Report)
Armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/06/2512-free-e-book-armenian-question.html
Armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/11/2187-book-excerpts-pastermadjians-why.html
http://www.turkla.com/
Source: http://www.turkla.com/
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