Turkse geleerde erkent Armeense genocide,

quote:

Turks Breach Wall of Silence on Armenians
By BELINDA COOPER


MINNEAPOLIS - Taner Akcam doesn't seem like either a hero
or a traitor, though he's been called both. A slight,
soft-spoken man who chooses his words with care, Mr. Akcam,
a Turkish sociologist and historian currently teaching at
the University of Minnesota, writes about events that
happened nearly a century ago in an empire that no longer
exists: the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire during World War I. But in a world where history and
identity are closely intertwined, where the past infects
today's politics, his work, along with that of like-minded
Turkish scholars, is breaking new ground.

Mr. Akcam, 50, is one of a handful of scholars who are
challenging their homeland's insistent declarations that
the organized slaughter of Armenians did not occur; and he
is the first Turkish specialist to use the word "genocide"
publicly in this context.

That is a radical step when one considers that Turkey has
threatened to sever relations with countries over this
single word. In 2000, for example, Ankara derailed an
American congressional resolution calling the 1915 killings
"genocide" by threatening to cut access to military bases
in the country."We accept that tragic events occurred at
the time involving all the subjects of the Ottoman Empire,"
said Tuluy Tanc, minister counselor at the Turkish Embassy
in Washington, "but it is the firm Turkish belief that
there was no genocide but self-defense of the Ottoman
Empire."

Scholars like Mr. Akcam call this a misrepresentation that
must be confronted. "We have to deal with history, like the
Germans after the war," said Fikret Adanir, a Turkish
historian who has lived in Germany for many years. "It's
important for the health of the democracy, for civil
society."

Most scholars outside Turkey agree that the killings are
among the first 20th-century instances of "genocide,"
defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention as acts
"committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

During World War I the government of the disintegrating
Ottoman Empire, fearing Armenian nationalist activity,
organized mass deportations of Armenians from its eastern
territories.

In what some consider the model for the Holocaust, men,
women and children were sent into the desert to starve,
herded into barns and churches that were set afire,
tortured to death or drowned. The numbers who died are
disputed: the Armenians give a figure of 1.5 million, the
Turks several hundred thousand.

In the official Turkish story the Armenians were casualties
of civil conflict they instigated by allying themselves
with Russian forces working to break up the Ottoman Empire.
In any case atrocities were documented in contemporary
press reports, survivor testimony and dispatches by
European diplomats, missionaries and military officers.
Abortive trials of Ottoman leaders after World War I left
an extensive record and some confessions of responsibility.


A legal analysis commissioned last year by the
International Center for Transitional Justice in New York
concluded that sufficient evidence existed to term the
killings a "genocide" under international law.

Yet unlike Germany in the decades since the Holocaust,
Turkey has consistently denied that the killings were
intended or that the government at the time had any moral
or legal responsibility. In the years since its founding in
1923 the Turkish Republic has drawn what the Turkish
historian Halil Berktay calls a "curtain of silence" around
this history at home and used its influence as a cold war
ally to pressure foreign governments to suppress opposing
views.

Mr. Akcam is among the most outspoken of the Turkish
scholars who have defied this silence. A student leader of
the leftist opposition to Turkey's repressive government in
the 1970's, Mr. Akcam spent a year in prison for "spreading
communist propaganda" before escaping to Germany. There,
influenced in part by Germany's continuing struggle to
understand its history, he began to confront his own
country's past. While researching the post-World War I
trials of Turkish leaders, he began working with Vahakn
Dadrian, a pre-eminent Armenian historian of the killings.
Their unlikely friendship became the subject of a 1997
Dutch film, "The Wall of Silence."

Turks fear to acknowledge the crimes of the past, Mr. Akcam
says, because admitting that the founders of modern Turkey,
revered today as heroes, were complicit in evil calls into
question the country's very legitimacy. "If you start
questioning, you have to question the foundations of the
republic," he said, speaking intensely over glasses of
Turkish tea in the book-lined living room of his
Minneapolis home, as his 12-year-old daughter worked on her
homework in the next room. In a study nearby transcriptions
of Turkish newspapers from the 1920's were neatly piled.

He and others like him insist that coming to terms with the
past serves Turkey's best interests. Their view echoes the
experience of countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe
and Africa that have struggled with similar questions as
they emerge from periods of repressive rule or violent
conflict. Reflecting a widespread belief that nations can
ensure a democratic future only through acknowledging past
wrongs, these countries have opened archives, held trials
and created truth commissions.

Mr. Akcam says some headway is being made, particularly
since the election of a moderate government in 2002 and
continuing Turkish efforts to join the European Union.
After all, he says, in the past dissent could mean
imprisonment or even death. "With the Armenian genocide
issue, no one is going to kill you," he said. "The
restrictions are in our minds."

Mr. Akcam is convinced the state's resistance to historical
dialogue is "not the position of the majority of people in
Turkey," he said. He cites a recent survey conducted by
scholars that appeared in a Turkish newspaper showing that
61 percent of Turks believe it is time for public
discussion of what the survey called the "accusations of
genocide."

Ronald Grigor Suny, an Armenian-American professor of
political science at the University of Chicago, was invited
to lecture at a Turkish university in 1998. "My mother
said, `Don't go, you can't trust these people,' " he
remembered. "I was worried there might be danger." Instead,
to his surprise, though he openly called the killings of
Armenians "genocide," he encountered more curiosity than
hostility.

Still, Mr. Akcam's views and those of like-minded scholars
remain anathema to the nationalist forces that still
exercise influence in Turkey. Threats by a nationalist
organization recently prevented the showing there of
"Ararat," by the Canadian-Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, a
movie that examines ways in which the Armenian diaspora
deals with its history.

Mr. Akcam's own attempt to resettle in Turkey in the 1990's
failed when several universities, fearing government
harassment, refused to hire him. And when Mr. Berktay
disputed the official version of the Armenian killings in a
2000 interview with a mainstream Turkish newspaper, he
became the target of a hate-mail campaign. Even so, he
says, the mail was far outweighed by supportive messages
from Turks at home and abroad. "They congratulated me for
daring to speak up," he recalled.

Scholarly discussion can also turn into a minefield among
the large numbers of Armenians in the United States and
Europe. Attempts to discuss the killings in a wider context
raise suspicions. "Many people in the diaspora feel that if
you try to understand why the Turks did it," Mr. Suny
explained, "you have justified or legitimized it in some
way."

Like their Turkish colleagues, a younger generation of
Armenian academics in the United States and elsewhere has
grown frustrated with the intellectual impasse. In 2000 Mr.
Suny and Fatma Muge Gocek, a Turkish-born sociology
professor at the University of Michigan, organized a
conference that they hoped would move scholarship beyond
what Mr. Suny called "the sterile debates on whether there
was a genocide or not." Despite some disagreements between
Turkish and Armenian participants, the group they brought
together has continued to meet and grow.

Mr. Akcam had been building bridges even before that
meeting. At a genocide conference in Armenia in 1995, he
met Greg Sarkissian, the founder of the Zoryan Institute in
Toronto, a research center devoted to Armenian history. In
what both describe as an emotional encounter, the two
lighted candles together in an Armenian church for Mr.
Sarkissian's murdered relatives and for Haji Halil, a
Turkish man who rescued Mr. Sarkissian's grandmother and
her children.

Mr. Akcam and Mr. Sarkissian say Halil, the "righteous
Turk," symbolizes the possibility of a more constructive
relationship between the two peoples. But like most
Armenians, Mr. Sarkissian says Turkey must acknowledge
historical responsibility before reconciliation is
possible. "If they do," he said, "it will start the healing
process, and then Armenians won't talk about genocide
anymore. We will talk about Haji Halil."

quote:

Op vrijdag 13 augustus 2004 18:11 schreef KirmiziBeyaz het volgende:
Er heeft geen genocide plaatsgevonden, dus valt het ook niet te erkennen.

quote:

Talaat Pasha's Official Orders Regarding the Armenian Massacres, March 1915-January 1916

March 25th, 1915

To Djemal Bey, Delegate at Adana:

The duty of everyone is to effect on the broadest lines possible the realization of the noble project of wiping out of existence the well-known elements who for centuries have been the barrier to the empire's progress in civilization.

We must, therefore, take upon ourselves the entire responsibility, pledging ourselves to this action no matter what happens, and always remembering how great is the sacrifice which the Government has made in entering the World War. We must work so that the means used may lead to the desired end.

In our dispatch dated February 18th, we announced that the Djemiet has decided to uproot and annihilate the different forces which for centuries have been a hindrance; for this purpose it is forced to resort to very bloody methods. Certainly the contemplation of these methods horrified us, but the Djemiet saw no other way of insuring the stability of its work.

Ali Riza [Note: the committee delegate at Aleppo] harshly criticised us and urged that we be merciful; such simplicity is nothing short of stupidity. We will find a place for all those who will not cooperate with us, a place that will wring their delicate heartstrings.

Again let me remind you of the question of property left. This is very important. Watch its distribution with vigilance; always examine the accounts and the use made of the proceeds.

THE DJEMIET


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September 3rd, 1915

To the Prefecture of Aleppo:

We advise that you include the woman and children also in the orders which have been previously prescribed as to be applied to the males of the intended persons. Select employees of confidence for these duties.

Minister of the Interior, TALAAT.


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September 16th

To the Prefecture of Aleppo:

You have already been advised that the Government, by order of the Djemiet, has decided to destroy completely all the indicated persons living in Turkey.

All who oppose this decision and command cannot remain on the official staff of the empire.

Their existence must come to an end, however tragic the means may be; and no regard must be paid to either age or sex, or to conscientious scruples.

Minister of the Interior, TALAAT.


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November 18th, 1915

To the Prefecture of Aleppo:

It appears, from the interventions which have recently been made by the American Ambassador [Note: Mr. Morgenthau] at Constantinople on behalf of his Government, that the American Consuls are obtaining information by some secret means. They remain unconvinced, despite our assurance that the deportations will be accomplished in safety and comfort.

Be careful that events which attract attention shall not occur in connection with those who are near cities and other centres. In view of our present policy, it is most important that foreigners who are in those parts shall be convinced that the expulsion of the Armenians is in reality only deportation.

Therefore it is necessary that a show of gentle dealing shall be made for a while, and the usual measures be taken in suitable places.

All persons who have given information to the contrary shall be arrested and handed over to the military authorities for trial by court-martial. This order is recommended as very important.

TALAAT.


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December 11th, 1915

To the Prefecture of Aleppo:

We are informed that some correspondents of Armenian journals are acquiring photographs and letters which depict tragic events, and these they give to the American Consul at Aleppo.

Dangerous people of this kind must be arrested and suppressed.

Minister of the Interior,
TALAAT.


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December 29th, 1915

To the Prefecture of Aleppo:

We are informed that foreign officers are finding along the roads the corpses of the indicated persons, and are photographing them.

Have these corpses buried at once and do not allow them to be left near the roads.

This order is recommended as very important.

Minister of the Interior,
TALAAT.


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January 15th, 1916

To the Government of Aleppo:

We are informed that certain orphanages which have opened also admitted the children of the Armenians.

Should this be done through ignorance of our real purpose, or because of contempt of it, the Government will view the feeding of such children or any effort to prolong their lives as an act completely opposite to its purpose, since it regards the survival of these children as detrimental.

I recommend the orphanages not to receive such children; and no attempts are to be made to establish special orphanages for them.

Minister of the Interior,
TALAAT.


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(Undated.)

From the Ministry of the Interior to the Governor of Aleppo:

Only those orphans who cannot remember the terrors to which their parents have been subjected must be collected and kept.

Send the rest away with the caravans.

Minister of the Interior,
TALAAT.

Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. III, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923