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The term Armenian Genocide (also referred as the Armenian Holocaust, Armenian Massacre, Armenian Incident) refers to the deportations/relocations and related deaths of Armenians as a consequence during the government of the Young Turks between 1915 and 1917. The event is currently a diplomatic dispute between Turkey and Armenia. Presure on Turkey by parts of international community to recognize it as a "state-sponsored extermination plan" rather than her standing "a consequence of armed conflict, civil war, disease, and famine during the turmoil of World War I" is increasing as the list of countries that have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide grows. Scholars worldwide agree that the event did happen. However there is a lack of agreement on various details. One of most significant disagreement is it's classification as genocide. There is also significant disagreement on the death toll. Numbers range between 200,000 to 1,600,000 or possibly more, however archives do not agree with each other.

Background

In 1914, before World War I, there were an estimated two million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Until the late 19th century, the Armenians were referred to as millet-i sadika (loyal people) by the Ottomans. Armenians were living in harmony with other ethnic groups across the Empire without any major conflict with the central authority while being subject to Islamic dhimmi laws. Religious and ethnic differences and the Christian Armenians gave them fewer legal rights than Muslims. While the Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia was large and clustered there also was also a considerable community of Armenians in the West, mostly in the capital city of Istanbul, in which a substantial community remains to this day. As a result of the incident thousands of Armenians fled to independent and semi-independent Muslim countries such as Egypt, Lebanon and Iran in what is known as the "Armenian Exodus" and exist there even today.

Before the Armenian Incident

During the second half of the 19th century, as the other minority groups of Anatolia such as Greeks and Bulgarians, Armenians started embracing nationalism.

Before World War I, the Ottoman Empire came under the government of the Young Turks. Initially some Armenian political organizations supported the Young Turks, in hopes that there would be a significant change of several policies of Abdul Hamid regarding various issues concerning the general and the Armenian population. In this respect, many Armenians were elected to the Ottoman Parliament, where some remained throughout World War I.

In 1914, the Ottoman government passed a new law establishing conscription to support the war effort. The law required all enabled adult males up to the age of forty-five to support the war effort by either recruiting into the Ottoman army or by paying special fees to be excluded. As a result most of the able-bodied men were removed from their homes, leaving only the women, children, and elderly behind.

Following the Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I, Imperial Russia invaded Eastern Anatolia, where a significant Armenian community exists. Taking advantage of common religion, Russia promoted Armenian nationalism. Soon after there were many Russian-Armenians enlisting into the Russian army, meanwhile, some Armenians had begun advocating an independent state.

The Armenian Incident

On April 24 1915, the Young Turk government arrested hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, most of whom were declared conspires and executed. Soon after orders for the relocation of hundreds of thousands, possibly over a million, Armenians primarily from eastern Anatolia as well as from rest of Anatolia with the exception of parts of the western coast to what is today Syria away from the eastern front. The 1915 government is criticized for not providing adequate facilities for the needs Armenians during their deportation nor after. The government is also criticized for providing inadequate protection to the deportees of Ottoman troops escorting Armenians from bandits of various origins and ethnicities.

In Van, the governor Djevdet ordered irregulars to commit crimes and force the Armenians to rebel to justify encircling the town by the Ottoman army. The Ottoman government ordered the deportation of over one million Armenians living in Anatolia to Syria and Mesopotamia, though this figure has not been conclusively established. The word "deportation" is misleading (and some would prefer the word "relocation", as the former means banishment outside a country's borders; Japanese-Americans, for example, were not "deported" during World War II), for the deportations were in practice a method of mass execution which led to the deaths of many of the Armenian population by forcing them to march endlessly through desert, without food or water or enough protection from local Kurdish or Turkish bandits, and members of the special organization were charged to escort the convoys (which meant their destruction).

The camps

The Ottoman Empire set up a recorded twenty-five to twenty-six of what are often called major "concentration camps" (Deir-Zor, Ras Ul-Ain, Bonzanti, Mamoura, Intili, Islahiye, Radjo, Katma, Karlik, Azaz, Akhterim, Mounboudji, Bab, Tefridje, Lale, Meskene, Sebil, Dipsi, Abouharar, Hamam, Sebka, Marat, Souvar, Hama, Homs and Kahdem), under the command of Şükrü Kaya, one of the right hands of Talat Paşa. The majority of the camps were situated near the Iraqi and Syrian frontiers, and some were only temporary transit camps. Other camps were only used as temporary mass burial zones—such as Radjo, Katma, and Azaz—that were closed in Fall 1915. After reports of deaths, the camps Lale, Tefridje, Dipsi, Del-El, and Ras Ul-Ain were built specifically for those who had a life expectancy of a few days. The majority of the guards inside the camps were Armenians.

Even though nearly all the camps, including all the major ones, were open air, according to records, some were not. Other camps existed, according to the military court, that were irregular Red Crescent camps used to kill by morphine injection (two Saib (health inspector) colleagues, Dr. Ragib and Dr. Vehib, testified during the court) and from which bodies were thrown into the Black Sea. In other instances, according to records, there were some small-scale killing and burning camps where the Armenian population was told to present itself in a given area, and was subsequently burned en mass. Other records from the military tribunal suggest that gassing installations existed as well. Other tribunal testimonies put forth that Dr. Saib and Nail, an Ittihadist deputy, were heading two school buildings used as extermination camps for children. Both Saib and Nail were allegedly in charge of providing the list of children who were to be distributed among the Muslim populace; the rest of the children were to be sent to the mezzanine floor to be killed by a mass gassing installation. The children were sent there under the pretext of taking baths but were poisoned instead.

While the total number of victims that perished in all such camps is hard to establish, it is by some sources estimated that close to a million would be a reasonable figure. This excludes Armenians who may have died in other ways, but may include the special organizations' participation in the events; the majority of the excluded losses are recorded in Bitlis and Sivas.

The special organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa)

While there was an official special organization founded in December 1911 by the Ottoman government, the second organization that participated in what led to the destruction of the Ottoman Armenian community was founded by the lttihad ve Terraki, technically appeared in July 1914 and was supposed to be different than the already existing organization in one important point, according to the military court and other records, it was meant to be a government in a government(without needing any orders to act). Later in 1914, the Ottoman government decided to draw the direction the special organization was supposed to take by releasing criminals from central prisons to be the central elements of this newly formed special organization. According to the Ottoman commissions attached to the tribunal, for example, the Mzhar commission, in Sivas, as soon as November 1914, 124 criminals were released from Pimian prison, and many other releases followed, in Ankara a few months later, 49 criminals were released from its central prison. Little by little from the end of 1914 to the beginning of 1915, hundreds of prisoners were freed to form the members of this organization that later were charged to escort the convoys of Armenian deportees, the number then grew to thousands. The commander of the Ottoman third army, Vehib called those members of the special organization, the “butchers of the human specy.” This organization was led by the Central Committee Members Doctor Nazim, Behaeddin Sakir, Atif Riza, and former Director of Public Security Aziz Bey. The headquarters of Behaeddin Sakir were in Erzurum, from where he directed the forces of the Eastern provinces. Aziz, Atif and Nazim Beys operated in Istanbul, and their decisions were approved and implemented by Cevat Bey, the Military Governor of Istanbul.

According to the same commissions and other records, the criminals were chosen by a process of selection, they had to be ruthless butchers to be selected as a member of the special organization. The Mazhar commission during the military court has provided some lists of those criminals, in one instance for example, from the 65 criminals released 50 were in prison for murder, the lists all gave such a disproportionate ratio between those condemned for murder and others for minor crimes which constituted a clear minority. This process of selection of the criminal was according to most Western researchers clearly indicative of the government's intention to commit mass murder of its Armenian population. It must be noted as well, that according to records, physicians participated in the process of selection, where health professionals were appointed by the war ministry to determine whether the selected convicts would be fit to apply a degree of savagery of killing that was required.

It is estimated that the members of the special organization have killed hundreds of thousands of Armenians.

Millitary trials, Istanbul, 1919

Many of those responsible for the genocide were sentenced to death in absentia, after having escaped their trials in 1918. The accused succeeded in destroying the majority of the documents, that could be used as evidence against them, before they escaped. The martial court established the will of the Ittheadists to eliminate the Armenians physically, via its special organization. The Court Martial, Istanbul, 1919: "The Court Martial taking into consideration the above-named crimes declares, unanimously, the culpability as principle factors of these crimes the fugitives Talat Pasha, former Grand Vizir, Enver Efendi, former War Minister, struck off the register of the Imperial Army, Cemal Efendi, former Navy Minister, struck off too from the Imperial Army, and Dr. Nazim Efendi, former Minister of Education, members of the General Council of the Union & Progress, representing the moral person of that party;... the Court Martial pronounces, in accordance with said stipulations of the Law the death penalty against Talat, Enver, Cemal, and Dr. Nazim."

Contemporary world responses to the Armenian Genocide

During the time of the genocide, a great number of articles appeared in the world's newspapers about the fate of the Armenians. Governments, committees, charities and individuals raised (in todays dollars) hundreds of millions of dollars to care for the victims.

Turkish government denial

Though soon after the Armenian Genocide, the world was well aware of the "extermination of the Armenians", which was openly discussed by Turkish government officials, and trials of Ottoman officials were held in regard to the events, after a period of quiet, a new policy of silencing and denial began. Eventually, a policy that is considered by many historians as official state denial emerged. Mention of the Armenian Genocide almost anywhere in the world was met with rebukes from Turkish Ambassadors, while mention of it in Turkey itself led to jail terms or worse on many occasions - ironically often prosecuted under a law against inciting ethnic hatred. Turkey began to spend large amounts of money on lobbying firms in Washington D.C. to counter genocide allegations, and improve its image. It also began to spend large amounts of money on endowed chairs of Turkish or Ottoman history in different U.S. universities which had conditions that the professors who were hired must be on "friendly" terms with Turkey. Some of their efforts to establish such chairs were met with student and public resistance and not all were eventually successful in being established.

The campaign of what is considered as denial was met with mixed success. Some governments, notably Turkish allies the U.S. and Israel will not officially use the word genocide to describe these events, though some government officials have used it personally. Many newspapers for a long time would not use the word genocide without disclaimers such as "alleged". A number of those policies have now been reversed so that even casting doubt on the term is against editorial policy - such as the case is with the New York Times. In recent years the number of governments recognizing the genocide officially, despite threats of economic retaliation by Turkey has grown. Two recent examples are France and Switzerland. Turkish entry talks with the European Union were met with a number of calls for recognition of the genocide, though it was eventually not a specific stipulation.

The most recent move by the Turkish government in this regard was for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the head of the main opposition party Deniz Baykal to hold a press conference in March 2005 inviting Armenian historians to meet with historians from Turkey to find out what happened - and called on Armenia to open its archives. This was met with a response from the Armenian Foreign minister that the world already knew what happened, and that Armenia's archives were always open.

Turkey has never established diplomatic relations with Armenia and has closed its land borders with Armenia. Armenia has declared repeatedly it is ready for relations and an open border without preconditions.

Recent history — timeline

1975: ASALA, a terrorist group that claimed recognition of genocide by Turkish government, was founded. Backed by some western countries, the group has killed several civilians and Turkish diplomats in various bombings and assasinations until the early 1980s.
April 24, 1994: President Bill Clinton issued a news release to commemorate the "tragedy" that befell the Armenians in 1915, yet he bowed to political pressure and refused to refer to it as "genocide," despite referring to the massacre as such before being elected president.
June 30, 1998: The American rock band System of a Down, whose members are Armenian in ancestry, wrote the song "P.L.U.C.K." ("Political Lying Unholy Cowardly Killers"), about the Armenian Genocide and the denial of it as genocide. "P.L.U.C.K." can be found as Track 13 on the self-titled album, "System of a Down".
January 18, 2001: Turkey recalls its ambassador from Paris in protest to a parliamentary bill that was unanimously passed formally recognizing the Armenian Holocaust as genocide and placing blame on the Turks. Relations between Turkey and France consequently suffer.
2002: The Armenian Genocide is the subject of the film Ararat, by Armenian-Canadian director Atom Egoyan.
February 20, 2003: A recent report on "The Applicability of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to Events which Occurred During the Early Twentieth Century" by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) states that "...at least some of the perpetrators of the Events knew that the consequence of their action would be the destruction, in whole or in part, of the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia, as such, or acted purposively towards this goal, and, therefore, possessed the requisite genocidal intent." The report concludes that "...the Events, viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the [UN] Convention, and legal scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe them" (p. 17).
April 14, 2003: According to the League for Human Rights [1], the Turkish Ministry of Education issued a document instructing heads of schools to organize conferences stating that Turkey never exterminated its minorities. It also recommends that the students should write dissertations on "fighting allegations of genocide", in which phrases such as "Turks may have killed Armenians" are banned in favour of presenting these events as a necessity in the face of the "massacres perpetrated by Armenians". A first report detailing the application of these recommendations was to be sent by each school to the local Ministry directorates on May 13, 2003.
April 2004: The Turkish government, in their new Penal Code, added a penalty of ten years in prison for any person that confirms that the Armenian Genocide took place. [2] The U.K. Parliament suggests, however, that "There is no mention of ... the Armenian genocide" in this penal code.
April 21, 2004: the Canadian House of Commons voted to officially recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide. The motion passed easily by 153 to 68, however, the Liberal-controlled Cabinet was instructed to vote against it. The federal government, in opposing the motion, did not express a position on whether the genocide took place, but rather cited a desire to avoid reopening old wounds and to maintain good relations with Turkey.
April 24, 2004: In marking the 89th Anniversary of the genocide, John Kerry issued a statement calling for international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
March, 2005: The Turkish Prime Minister and head of opposition held a press conference proposing the meeting of Armenian and Turkish historians to find out what really happened. The Prime Minister also called on Armenia to open its archives. The Armenian Foreign Minister rejected the invitation, stating that the world already knew what happened, and that its archives have always been open.
2001-2004: Also breaking a campaign promise, the subsequent President George W. Bush, in each year of his first term, refused to use the word "genocide" to describe the killings, though promising Armenian-Americans during his election campaign to recognize the "genocidal campaign" to which Armenians were subjected.

In the past, many prominent American politicians have made statements in support of formal recognition of the Armenian genocide. While president Ronald Reagan publicly referred to the events of 1915 as a 'genocide', a major feat in and of itself, nonetheless to this day no formal resolution recognizing the genocide has been passed by the US government. The Armenian side speculates that fear of retribution from Turkey, a US ally and NATO partner, is behind the lack of formal recognition, whereas the Turkish side speculates that the only reason for the possibility of such a recognition would be the strength of Armenian lobby efforts within US rather than the genuineness of the claims.

April, 2005: The Turkish State Archive issued a list of more than 523,000 Turks whom it said were killed by Armenians in Turkey between 1910 and 1922 as Armenians allegedly tried to establish themselves as the majority population in Easter Anatolia.

April, 2005: The Turkish historian Murat Bardakçı opened the notes of Talat Paşa dating back to 1914 about the population of Armenians under Ottoman rule. The following is a script from Talat Paşa's notebook "The number of Gregorian and Catholic Armenians that lived under the Ottoman Empire was 1,256,403. By considering the fact that there might be some unaccounted people, we can increase this number to 1,500,000. The cities where the deportation is applied there are 284,157 Armenians but if we increase this number by 30% just to be sure, there are between 250,000 and 400,000 in the cities where the deportation was applied." He says that "The total Armenian population was a maximum of 1,500,000. Out of these many people, 924,158 were deported and there are still around 400,000 people in cities where deportation was applied" He also says that there were 68,422 Armenians in Istanbul in 1914 and this number went up to 80,000 in the next year. None of these people were subject to deportation.

Armenian who are the running party from discussions of what realy happened to their nation between 1886-1923. They keep saying that they were the inccocent ones and it was Turks are the qilty part.Today's Armenian prime minister is openly admits that there is no need to discuss this problem. The World has already accept their claims and their arguments.They can continue their policies while they remain landlock and cut of from everything and some day EU can accept them as a member while Turkey is still waiting for to be passed another hurdle which is laid by Turcopholies in European capitals.We will be in joy that day when the real face of Christian faith privails...

Official recognition

Several countries officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, including

Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Lebanon, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay and Vatican City.
European Parliament
Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly
United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
The majority of US states also recognize the Armenian Genocide, however there is no federal (Country-wide) recognition.
the Canadian House of Commons voted to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. The federal government, in opposing the motion, did not express a position on whether the genocide took place.
International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) Report Prepared for TARC

Turkish intellectuals who support the theses of genocide

There are a number of Turkish scholars who support the theses of genocide, including turkish historians Ragip Zarakolu and Ali Ertem, as well as Taner Akçam and Halil Berktay. Despite being protested strongly by some Turkish nationalists. Orhan Pamuk, a famous Turkish novelist, has also recently told the swiss press that he believes that a million Armenians and 30,000 kurds were killed in Turkey.

The reason why some Turkish intellectuals accept the theses of genocide, lies behind three important points. First, the fact that this organization members were criminals, and that those criminals were specifically sent to escort the Armenians, for them is enough evidences of a government criminal intention. Second, the fact that not only the Armenians living in the war zone were removed, according to them this plays against the theses of military necessity vehiculed by the Ottoman government. Thirdly, according to them, the theses of simple relocation does not make sense, because there was no dispositions taken suggesting a “resettlement,” which could mean that the government didn't expected Armenians would survive. Dr. Taner Akçam, a Turkish specialist, write about this point: “The fact that neither at the start of the deportations, nor en route, and nor at the locations, which were declared to be their initial halting places, were there any single arrangement, required for the organization of a people's migration, is sufficient proof of the existence of this plan of annihilation.”

Those Turkish intellectuals believe that 800,000 or more Armenians lost their lives during the events.

Armenian Genocide memorial

Genocide memorial at the Tsitsernakaberd hill, Yerevan

The idea of the memorial arose in 1965, at the commemorating of the 50th anniversary of the genocide. Two years later the memorial (by architects Kalashian and Mkrtchyan) was completed at the Tsitsernakaberd hill above the Hrazdan gorge in Yerevan. The 44 metre stele symbolizes the national rebirth of Armenians. 12 slabs postioned into circle, represent 12 lost provinces in present day Turkey. In the centre of the circle, in depth of 1.5 metres, there is an eternal flame. Along the park at the memorial there is a 100 metre wall with names of towns and villages where massacres are known to have taken place. In 1995 a small circular museum was opened at the other end of the park where one learn about basic information about the events in 1915. Some photos taken by German photographers (Turkish allies during World War I) and some publications about the genocide are also displayed. Near the museum is a spot where foreign statesmen plant trees in memory of the genocide. Each April 24th (Armenian Genocide Commemoration Holiday) hundreds of thousands of people walk to the genocide monument and lay flowers (usually red carnations or tulips) around the eternal flame. Armenians around the world mark the genocide in different ways, and many memorials have been built in Armenian Diaspora communities.

References

Balakian, Peter (2003). The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response. HarperCollins. ISBN 0060198400.
McCarthy, Justin (1996). Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922. Darwin Press, Incorporated. ISBN 0878500944.
"The Armenian Genocide: A Bibliography". University of Michigan, Dearborn: Armenian Research Center. Retrieved March 18, 2005.
"The Armenian Genocide: A Supplemental Bibliography, 1993-1996". University of Michigan, Dearborn: Armenian Research Center. Retrieved March 18, 2005.

External links

Websites supporting the genocide theses

Media:

Armenians to mark genocide Rockland Journal-News
BBC News article Turkey must admit Armenia dead'
Australian Ryde City Officially Recognized Armenian Genocide and Called on Commonwealth Government to Do the Same
CDAE - Colectif des Démocrates Arméniens d'Europe Europe based group fighting for human rights in Armenia and genocide

Websites opposing the genocide theses