Khorshid Delli
North-Press Agency
105 years since the massacres committed against the Armenians during Ottoman Era, while the case is still alive in the form of an open Armenian wound awaiting recognition from Turkey, and for Turkey to bear moral and political responsibility for it. In the archives of the Armenians, as well as of many countries, especially Turkey and Britain, there are thousands of pieces of evidence, facts, witnesses, and historical documents that confirm the occurrence of the genocide against the Armenians and their displacement from their homes, and their gathering in desert places and thr carrying out of mass killings at the hands of Turkish soldiers by a decision of the highest Ottoman authorities. Accordingly, the Armenians, whether at home or abroad, and with all their strengths, sought to make this issue a sacred national one that is present on the agenda of international forums, and has worked at all levels to force Turkey to acknowledge this crime.
The Armenians say that the height of the massacres was on April 24th, 1915, when Turkish soldiers executed thousands of the Armenians in the Syrian desert of Deir ez-Zor after they were forcibly sent there. It became usual that the attention of the Turks and the Armenians heads to this day every year, to be a new stage of tension in terms of the relations between the two historical neighbors. Perhaps what plagues Turkey more is not the huge events organized by the Armenians on the anniversary of the genocide, but the international stances, specifically the Western ones, which tended to describe what happened as a genocide, and the moral, political, and legal responsibility that this recognition entails on Turkey.
Massacres or genocide?
The Armenians say that what happened against them was an organized genocide, after the Ottoman Empire accused them of treason and work in favor of Russia, which was at a war with the Ottoman State for many years. While Turkey believed that what happened was not a genocide. Rather, it sees the events as acts of killing that took place due to the conditions of World War I and the Armenian coup against the Ottoman State, and it claims that the victims were not only Armenians but also Turks.
In Armenian documents there are many statistics which say that the number of their victims amounted to a million and a half, and that they were killed during organized warfare through campaigns of arrest, collection and physical liquidation, as well as the death of many in exile due to hunger and disease, and that the killings were carried out by a decision of the Federal Supreme Authorities, which began at first with the arrest of the cultural, intellectual, and economic elites in major cities, especially Istanbul, and the liquidation of many of these elites. Then the killings moved to the eastern provinces bordering Russia, where Turkey was at war, then the authorities carried out massive displacement of the Armenians in the form of convoys (numbered 306 convoys in 1915, during which thousands died) guarded by the Ottoman forces, where most of them were deported to Syria (Deir ez-Zor and Sere-Kaniye/Ras al-Ain), northern Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. The documents add that about 400,000 Armenians died in concentration camps due to hunger, disease, cold, lack of food and water, while more than 300,000 detainees were killed in massacres committed by Turkish soldiers, 192,000 in Deir ez-Zor, 40,000 in Sere-Kaiye/Ras al-Ain, 80,000 in Istanbul and 10,000 in Izmir. About 500,000 were also killed in the eastern provinces. According to Armenian documents, the massacres were not only limited to the civilians, but they also affected the Ottoman soldiers of Armenian origin, as a decision was issued to demilitarize them at the beginning, and then liquidate them, and their number reached about 120,000 soldiers. Nearly 700,000 out of more than two million Armenians survived in 1915, and most of the survivors fled to areas that were controlled by the Russian army.
On the other hand, Turkey says that the number of victims was only about 300,000 Armenians, the same as the Turks, and that the deportation campaigns that took place in the Syrian desert, specifically in Deir ez-Zor governorate, were not aimed at killing the Armenians, but to protect them after the spread of an atmosphere of hostility against them inside the Ottoman State because of their treachery and work with the Russians. They added that the circumstances of the wars were the main cause of these killings, and that the Armenians themselves committed killings against Turks and the Kurds in many eastern regions with Russian support. Between both Armenian and Turkish narrations, the reports by relevant international centers and bodies estimate the number of the victims at more than one million Armenians, and confirm that what occured were massacres prepared by a political decision of the highest authorities in Istanbul, which was the capital of the Ottoman caliphate at that time. Many believe that the commitment of these massacres has an economic dimension, as the Armenians, especially in Istanbul, were among the most important owners of money, business, industry, and trade, and that they were exterminated with the sponsorship and approval of higher authorities to seize their money and property.
In fact, over the past decades, Armenians – at home and abroad – sought to keep the issue of the massacres alive by organizing annual events and moving within international forums to recognize the genocide. During their move, they based their arguments on the law of genocide prevention, which was approved by the United Nations in 1951 and placed under international law. The Armenians often compare what happened to them to the massacres committed in Rwanda, Cambodia, Liberia, Yugoslavia and Germany. They see themselves as following in the footsteps of the international recognition of the massacres committed against the Tutsis in Rwanda, and are seeking to obtain a similar declaration regarding the Armenian genocide. However, what is remarkable here is that Armenians are not only demanding recognition of the genocide as a crime and that Turkey be held responsible, but they also demand historical rights within modern-day Turkey, as they see that they have lands inside Turkish territory that are called Western Armenia, where their historical and religious symbols are. Armenian reports say that before the massacres, there were more than a thousand Armenian churches inside Turkey, while only 98 of them have survived.
Political dimensions in an open case
Ankara may not have expected the size of the international recognition of the Armenian genocide, especially the recognition of the US Congress, as well as the decision of the European Parliament on this regard. This has led to more tension in Turkish-European and US-Turkish relations, as the issue of the international recognition of the Armenian genocide has become a difficult challenge to Turkish diplomacy and, at the same time, a continuous success for Armenian diplomacy, especially as Turkey began to feel the series of recognitions of the genocide by many western countries. The number of the countries that have recognized the genocide so far has reached 32, as well as dozens of international organizations and bodies, including the United Nations, the European Parliament, and the World Council of Churches. In depth, Turkey feels that this series of recognitions is a victory for Armenian lobbies abroad, especially in the United States. In essence, Turkey sees that the series of international recognitions will push it to acknowledge the commitment of a genocide that it says it did not commit, especially since Turkey has approved Law 301, which criminalizes recognition of the massacres committed during the era of the Ottoman Empire. The irony here is that in light of all this, Turkey is moving revive the Ottoman identity of Turkey, although this causes many historical, geographical, political, and ideological problems with neighboring countries and the world.
Indeed, there is a feeling among Armenians and among those who support the case of the genocide that Turkey has tried from the beginning to circumvent this crime through multiple paths and levels, perhaps the most important of which are:
1- Placing the genocide in the framework of killings during the battles that took place in the World War I in an attempt to evade the consequences of recognizing the crime of genocide, even though historical documents confirm that the genocide took place according to a previously studied policy. This was clearly evident in the campaigns targeting Armenian intellectuals and their intellectual, literary, and cultural products before they turned into mass arrests and the collection of Armenians in detention centers and their subsequent deportation to the desert and mass murder.
2- Trying to mislead the world by saying that the victims are not only Armenians, but also Turks, and placing the matter in the category of Armenians’ betrayal to the Sublime Porte by saying that they cooperated with the Russians during the war, and also by reducing the number of the victims by saying that they do not exceed 300,000 Armenians. However, historical documents indicate that the number of victims amounted to approximately one and a half million Armenians.
3- Attempting to erase the Armenian memory, their antiquities, their religious places, and their civilized identity. Reports indicate that alongside the human genocide, Ottoman authorities practiced the cultural genocide, focusing on erasing the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual productions. Because of this policy, the Armenians witnessed a kind of extermination and eradication, where many of them were forced to register themselves as Turks to avoid sanctions, sieges, oppression, and extermination.
This policy that Turkey pursued against Armenians and other national and religious minorities may have succeeded in limiting the liveliness of the peoples and their ability to express themselves, their identity, history, and geography for a period of time. However, history proves that the open wound, the willpower, and the facts of history and geography were stronger than these authoritarian measures. Despite everything it experienced, the Armenian nation has succeeded to keep the memory of the genocide alive, and this is through the following facts:
1- The Armenians succeeded in bringing the issue of the genocide to international forums and ensuring its inclusion in the parliaments of most countries in the world.
2- Armenia succeeded in pushing Turkey to negotiate on the issue of the genocide, which was evident in the Zurich agreement in 2009 before the agreement was frozen after Turkey linked the opening of a new page in the relations between the two countries with new conditions, including the issue of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
3- The Armenians succeeded in winning the friendships of many peoples and countries and brought sympathy to their issue, including the civil society movement in Turkey, where we began witnessing a Turkish internal movement calling for recognition of the crime of genocide.
4- The movement of recognition of the crime of genocide by many countries has put Turkey in a state of tension in its relations with these countries, and Erdogan’s threats to withdraw ambassadors from countries that their parliaments recognize the crime of genocide are known.
In the face of the progress that the Armenians are making towards bringing international recognition to the crime of the genocide, it is clear that the Turkish government is trying to circumvent the recognition of the crime of genocide in various ways, through the following facts:
1- Erdogan’s mentality and his Ottoman culture do not indicate any change in the essence of Turkish discourse that is based on the denial of the crime. This mentality is an expression of the continuation of the repression and the policy of exclusion towards national and religious minorities.
2- Erdogan’s call to form a committee of historians to discuss the issue, restore some churches, and talk about common suffering and other formal steps, comes within the framework of attempts to simplify the issue and circumvent it.
3- Trying to buy the attitudes of countries, and even blackmailing and threatening countries to prevent them from recognizing the genocide. Erdogan’s weapon here is contract deals and political blackmail, as is the case raised by the issue of what France committed in Algeria whenever France spoke about the Armenian genocide.
In fact, it can be said that the Armenians have succeeded in including the issue of genocide on the agenda of international forums to a great extent, and in keeping this issue alive, despite all Turkey’s attempts to continue denying and circumventing it.
From the genocide of the Armenians to the genocide of the Kurds
AnchorIn the footsteps of his Ottoman ancestors, Erdogan continues to commit massacres and occupation, but this time against the Kurds. Erdogan’s war against the Kurds in the Kurdish regions inside Turkey has exceeded all borders. In addition to the campaigns of killing and displacement, Turkey erased Kurdish identity, antiquities, history, and culture. In this vein, it started destroying the old city of Diyarbakir – Amed on the pretext of real estate development, and demolished the ancient site of Hasankeyf under the pretext of generating electricity; Hasankeyf formed the jewel of Kurdish civilization more than ten centuries ago. In Syria, and under the pretext of Turkish national security, Erdogan launched a series of wars against the Kurds, starting from occupying Afrin, then Tal-Abyad and Sere-Kaniye (Ras al-Ain), where Turkey is now practicing a policy of social and cultural genocide against the Kurds by changing the demographic structure of Kurdish areas and bringing its affiliated settlers to these regions. Perhaps the most dangerous thing here is Turkey’s tolerance of the terrorist groups that practice killing, assassination, and seizure of the houses of the Kurds, in addition to displacement, demographic change, and the formation of new social structures at the expense of the owners of the land, their identity, and their existence. All of the aforementioned took place and is taking place in Afrin and Sere-Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) in the form of an ethnic genocide of a component rooted in these areas, and constitutes the basis of its cultural and social identity amid a silence and an international complicity towards Erdogan’s continuation of his crimes against the Kurds.