Turkije: De Armeense Genocide 1915

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The presence of Armenia on the Armenian plateau was a major obstacle to the unification of all Turkish speaking peoples in a Turkish state extending to Central Asia. The outbreak of WWI provided the Ottoman Empire (the ruling empire in Turkey ) with an opportunity to fulfill their dream of PAN-Turkism by exterminating Armenians all-together. Exterminating the entire race and leaving no Armenian heirs to guard the Armenian nation. The Ottoman Empire plotted the mass-evacuation and extermination of Armenians from Western Turkey and Eastern Armenia and executed these plans without disdain.

During the first six months of the war it was clear that the Young Turk (dominant party) government was ill disposed toward its Armenian citizens. Since August 1914, the Young Turk government had formed a paramilitary organization called the Special Organization units. As it became clear later the purpose of these units was the extermination of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire . The earlier fears of Armenians were to be justified. Turkish army officials, anxious to find a scapegoat for the humiliating defeat in the war, charged the Armenians as being untrustworthy to the Ottoman government.

On the night of April 23-24 1915, hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders were summarily arrested in the capital of the Ottoman Empire . The massive round-up resulted in the imprisonment of most Armenian politicians, priests, scientists, lawyers, doctors and writers of the Ottoman Empire . Shortly thereafter, the prisoners were deported to the inner provinces where nearly all of them were murdered by the authorities. Approximately 5000 community leaders were eliminates in this fashion. The Armenians were alarmed by the arrest of their community leaders. The Armenian deputies of the Ottoman Parliament expressed their anxiety to the government. These two deputies were themselves deported and assassinated.

April 24 each year since 1915 represents the symbolic date of the Armenian Genocide. That day is marked as a commemoration day for the victims of the Armenian Genocide. Many events and protests are organized throughout the world.

The first mass deportations began in late March 1915 in the region of Cilicia, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea . An extensive plan of deportation and elimination of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was prepared by Talat pasha, the head of the government. Notices of deportation were posted in public places and the news announced publicly in the streets of the Armenian towns and villages of the Armenian plateau. The Armenian men, women, children were given a few days to leave their homes. Families were expected to take only a minimum of baggage. The Turkish lies for relocation was that if was for the safety of Armenians from the war and that they needed every weapon that could assist them in fighting the war. Many Armenians in their naïve trust gave the soldiers all they had to offer. The mass deportations began. The Armenians were organized into convoys and were made to walk to the Syrian Desert to the south. This indicated a well-organized plan. The men were taken to isolated locations beyond the city limits where they were executed. There have been many stories of victims; how their eyes were taped open and they were forced to stare at the sun until they were blinded, how men were lined up in front of camps and decapitated one by one! The women, children and straggling elderly were to die a much slower death. Without food and water, they were dragged from one province to another. They were stripped of their clothes and were forced to walk barefooted and naked through the harshness of the desert! Women, girls were forced to dance around fire pits for the Turkish soldiers. Girls and women were ruthlessly raped and their bodies mutilated. Many of them were sold to Turkish families as slaves. Some T urkish people took many Armenian children to be raised in their homes saving their lives, but losing their Armenian Identity. Many women courageously killed themselves, by throwing themselves into a river, just so the Turks would not get to them. On August 1916, the Ottoman government dismissed the Patriarch of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and arrested the last holder of that position.

From May 1915 until the spring 1916, nearly all Armenians of the Ottoman Empire disappeared from the Armenian plateau. Around 1,500,000 Armenians were murdered, a country was torn apart and a people left grieving, perpetrated by the government of Turkey , the Ottoman Empire . More than half the Armenian population perished and the rest were forcibly driven from their ancestral homeland. Many Armenians escaped massacres by fleeing to Europe and America , later forming Armenian Diaspora.

There were many instances of heroic struggle for survival by Armenians. One that really stands out is the “40 days of Musa Dagh”. A small group of Armenians, children, men, women, and elderly are surrounded by overwhelming Turkish army on the top of the mountain called Musa ler. And there were many heroes that rose against the bloodthirsty enemy to defend their people and land. These freedom fighters were called fidayi. One man among Armenians who is admired to this day as the role model for the liberation of Armenia and its freedom is “Andranik” People told epic stories about him, such as bullets could not penetrate his coat and so. The enemy was terrified hearing his name in the battle.

The world closed its eyes on the first genocide of the 20 th century. European countries and America turned their back on Armenian genocide. Armenian leaders sent letters to European governments pleading to save Armenian people from massacre, but their cry was in vein. Today although many countries including Canada, France, Italy, Argentina, Netherlands, Brasilia and 26 US states officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. But Turkey is still in denial.

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Op donderdag 1 juni 2006 19:27 schreef Pracissor het volgende:
Ik heb er ooit een paper over geschreven, er zijn gewoon op zijn minst 1 miljoen Armeniers vermoord, hier zijn de meeste historici over eens. Ironisch genoeg zijn juist de berichten van de duitse soldaten die de turken trainde, de grootste bron voor historisch onderzoek, ze beschreven de massamoord van de bevriende Turken op de Armeniers.

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Het schijnt wel meer vanuit nationalistisch motief dan vanuit religieus motief te zijn, protestantse en katholieken Armeniers in de grote steden werden vaak ongemoeid gelaten omdat zij geen bedreiging zouden vormen.

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Op donderdag 1 juni 2006 19:45 schreef Lord_Vetinari het volgende:
De eerste hit op de search: Moet Nederland de genocide op de Armeniers erkennen?

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Op donderdag 1 juni 2006 21:13 schreef OguzHan het volgende:
De Turken hadden de keuze: OF het land verdedegen met harde maatregelen OF als land volledig verzuipen in het oorlogsgeweld.
In geval van nood is de keus snel gemaakt.

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Op donderdag 1 juni 2006 21:44 schreef De_Hertog het volgende:
Na een moment stilte dan toch een vraag: wat is die foto van de ster voor 'Near East Relief'? Er staat dat het wezen zijn, zijn dat kinderen van slachtoffers die om aandacht vragen of zo?

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"Near East Relief was the name of the American charity specifically organized in response to the Armenian Genocide. At the urging of Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr. to prevent the complete destruction of the Armenian population, the US government took a number of steps. Among them was the effort to send humanitarian relief. The Department of State quietly turned to the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions to begin an emergency drive for the collection of funds. Under the leadership of James L. Barton and Cleveland H. Dodge, the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief was founded in 1915. The Committee enjoyed the ardent support of President Woodrow Wilson. Through public rallies, church collections, and with the assistance of charitable organizations and foundations, the Committee raised millions in its campaigns to save "the starving Armenians." The Committee was able to deliver funds through the American Embassy in Constantinople which relied upon the missionaries and its consuls to distribute the aid. While the U.S. entry into war against Germany and Turkey in April 1917 disrupted this critical lifeline, the Committee widened its scope of activities at the end of the war also to include Russian Armenia where hundreds of thousands had taken refuge. Renamed the American Committee for Relief in the Near East in 1918, it was incorporated by an act of Congress in 1919 as Near East Relief (NER). Between 1915 and 1930, when it ended operations, NER administered $117,000,000 of assistance. It delivered food, clothing, and materials for shelter by the shipload from America. It set up refugee camps, clinics, hospitals, orphanages, and centers for vocational training. NER is credited with having cared for 132,000 Armenian orphans scattered across the region from Tbilisi and Yerevan to Constantinople, Beirut, Damascus, and Jerusalem. Near East Relief was an act of philanthropy, which in the words of the American historian Howard M. Sachar, "quite literally kept an entire nation alive."

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Op donderdag 1 juni 2006 22:22 schreef De_Hertog het volgende:
Erg interessant. De Turkse ontkenning wordt ook wel wat vreemd, zo met al die foto's en de betrokkenheid van een Amerikaanse organisatie. Overigens, die moeten dan toch wel een of ander archief hebben of zo, is er in die kant niet meer informatie te vinden?

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Op vrijdag 2 juni 2006 00:40 schreef OguzHan het volgende:
Als wij Turken de Armeniers zo erg haatten, vertel eens, waarom hebben wij ze niet uitgeroeid in de 500 jaar ervoor, toen wij de halve bekende wereld veroverden?

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Op donderdag 1 juni 2006 23:42 schreef OguzHan het volgende:
Zie mijn post hierboven en niemand ontkent dat er doden zijn gevallen. Het is eenmaal oorlog shit happens. Net als de vele Turkse burgerslachtoffers.