Swedish Archives Confirm: It was a genocide!

Press Release
April 21, 2008
Armenica.org
Uppsala, Sweden
info@armenica.org
www.armenica.org

Swedish Archives Confirm: It was a genocide!

A recently conducted study at the Uppsala University has revealed highly interesting information in the Swedish Archives, which once again confirm the researchers' view of the events in the Ottoman Turkey during the First World War: the Christian minorities, the Armenians in particular, were subjected to genocide.

The massacres in Ottoman Turkey during the First World War claimed the lives of approximately 1.5 million out of a world population of four million Armenians, while over 250,000 Assyrians/Chadeans and equal number of Pontic Greeks. In 1923, for the first time in over 2,500 years, Armenians no longer lived on 85 % of their fatherland. Thus, the Armenian genocide was, in a sense, a successful genocide, acquiring the perpetrators an Armenia without Armenians.

The conducted survey covers the period between 1915 and 1923 and includes, among others, reports which the Swedish Ambassador, Cosswa Anckarsvärd, and the Swedish Military Attaché, Einar af Wirsén, both stationed in Constantinople, sent to the Foreign Department (found in the National Archive) and the General Staff Headquarters (found in the War Archive) in Stockholm, respectively. In total, about eighty documents were found with direct relevance to the so-called Armenian Question, of which some are over-explicit in their message: the Turkish Government conducted a systematic extermination of the Armenian Nation.

On July 6, 1915, Ambassador Anckarsvärd, writing to the Swedish Foreign Minister, Knut Wallenberg, concludes: "Mr. Minister, The persecutions of the Armenians have reached hair-raising proportions and all points to the fact that the Young Turks want to seize the opportunity, since due to different reasons there are no effective external pressure to be feared, to once and for all put an end to the Armenian question. The means for this are quite simple and consist of the extermination [utrotandet] of the Armenian nation [emphasis added]." Anckarsvärd's reports until 1920 persisted in the same insight. At several occasions, the Ambassador points out that "It is obvious that the Turks are taking the opportunity to, now during the war, annihilate [utplåna] the Armenian nation [emphasis added] so that when the peace comes no Armenian question longer exists." In a later report (1917) he underlines that the massacres are not clashes between the Muslim and the Armenian populations, but "that the persecutions of Armenians have been done at the instigation of the Turkish Government [emphasis added]..." As an explanation to the prevailing famine in Turkey during 1917, the Embassy Envoy Alhgren mentions the shortage of workers, which is claimed partly to be a result of "the extermination of the Armenian race [utrotandet af den armeniska rasen] [emphasis added]". Major Wirsén's reports to the General Staff concur with Anckarsvärd's analysis. In 1942 Wirsén published his memoirs, entitled Minnen från fred och krig ("Memories from Peace and War"), reflecting upon his time as Swedish Military Attaché in the Balkans and Turkey. In a chapter entitled Mordet på en nation ("The Murder of a Nation"), Wirsén renders his observations of the Armenian massacres: "Officially, these [deportations] had the goal to move the entire Armenian population to the steppe regions of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria, but in reality they aimed toexterminate [utrota] the Armenians [emphasis added], whereby the pure Turkish element in Asia Minor would achieve a dominating position." In the conclusion of this chapter he recalls his conversation with the Turkish Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha and notes: "The annihilation of the Armenian nation [emphasis added] in Asia Minor must revolt all human feelings.The way the Armenian problem was solved was hair-raising. I still can see in front of me Talaat's cynical expression, when he emphasized that the Armenian Question was solved."

The mentioned quotations are a fraction of the information presented in the study. In addition to the mentioned archives of the Foreign Ministry and the General Staff, the reports from the Swedish missionaries and the Swedish newspapers were also included in the study and concur with the same view. The surveyed documents are mainly in regard to the Armenian Question, but the data bed indicates that other Christian groups, such as Greeks and Syriacs, were affected by the same fate.

The study clearly emphasises the concept of "bystander". While the word itself implies that the bystanders do not participate in the genocide, some contend that they are far from just a neutral viewer to the tragedy, but passive participators in the annihilation. The British statesman and political thinker Edmund Burke's statement captures the essence of the bystanders to genocide: "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." The documents clearly indicate that the Swedish Government was well informed about the state-orchestrated extermination of the Armenians. They also disclose that the Government, fully in accordance with the policy of a small state, consciously chose not to intervene in the matter, neither during the massacres nor after when the League of Nations suggested Sweden as a mandate power in Armenia. While resorting to isolationism during the period of the implementation of the genocide, Sweden followed the general stream, in particular that of the Major Power's, during the post-war period when the question of securing the future of the Armenian Nation was discussed. Sweden, as all other states, chose to secure its national interests rather than standing out from the rest by advocating Armenia's right and the question of punishing the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. The present-day Swedish Government does not seem to be willing to become involved in the question either. Just last fall, the Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, during an interpellation in the Swedish Parliament, refrained from officially recognising the 1915 genocide, partly by referring to "the need of additional research about what really transpired in the Ottoman Empire." The surveyed documents should at least quench that need; the official reports from the Swedish Ambassador and the Swedish Military Attaché in Constantinople are unambiguous: Armenians were subjected to genocide.

The study in its whole is included in a master thesis paper which will be presented in the Higher Seminar at the Uppsala University's Department of History. It will also be available at http://www.armenica.org . Vahagn Avedian, Editor of Armenica.org and Master Degree Student at Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

Professor criticized for genocide views

2/13/08
Daily 49er, CA
Rosaura Figueroa and Erin McKenzie

Professor Ali Igmen was the focus of defamatory remarks, sent possibly to him by a CSULB faculty member, for his insistence on the existence of an Armenian genocide.

The Scholars in Conversation on the Armenian Genocide forum on Tuesday proved to be controversial on the most personal of terms for Ali Igmen, director of the oral history program at the Cal State Long Beach History Department. Igmen was targeted during the forum's discussion and debate on allegations of propagandizing his views on the hotly debated existence of an Armenian genocide.

According to Igmen, the allegations came from a tenured professor from another college at CSULB who attacked Igmen's credibility for supporting definition of the events as genocide.

The tensions surrounding the controversial subject may have led to an increased police and security presence at the presentation. Protesters were told to stand in the back room before the disputed Armenian genocide forum took center stage.

The panel discussion included experts Richard Hovannisian from UCLA and Taner Akcam from the University of Minnesota, who discussed their investigative findings with a full audience of students, professors and guests.

Both Hovannisian and Akcam emphasized the Turkish rejection of any such genocide taking place between 1915 and 1918. The Turkish government claims the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians was a result of a civil war and the targeting of Turks by Armenian rebels, rather than genocide.

"It is important for a society to face its own history," Akcam said. Few Turkish scholars are willing to discuss the topic openly and are apprehensive about using the word genocide, according to Akcam. He also said that avoiding the term allows for the liberty of denial.

The panel did not include any scholars who supported the Turkish's government stance on the issue.

"Some students approached me and said that both sides were not represented," said Igmen after the forum. "But they were civil and polite, and I was not upset by them."

About a dozen supporters clapped as an open question-and-comment session highlighted the absence of any opposing viewpoint.

"[It's] not possible to consider a denialist point of view," said Akcam.

Hovannisian added that to invite a scholar who supported the Turkish government's official stance was equivalent to inviting a Holocaust denier to a forum on the genocide of the Jewish population and others during the times of Nazi Germany.

According to Akcam, the Turkish government has done a cleansing of national archives in order to destroy proof pertaining to an Armenian genocide. He referred to the absence of any such incident in Turkish textbooks as a case of social amnesia and denial.

However, Akcam said that not all proof could be destroyed because the Armenian genocide was a massive state effort that left trails.

Hovannisian said the 800 accounts he has gathered from survivors of the genocide were proof that could not be ignored. He also compared the Armenian genocide to background music - it's there all the time, but we never listen to it.

Akcam called for a need of more Turkish scholars who are willing to recognize and discuss the Armenian genocide as a crime.

"Turkey must change their language," said Akcam.

Currently, the word genocide is considered a national threat to the Turkish government, according to Akcam.

Hovannisian pointed to fear of financial repercussions as one reason for the Turkish government's unwillingness to acknowledge an Armenian genocide, which he described as unique because it fulfills all five aspects of the United Nations' definition of genocide.

Andy Franks also contributed to this report.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

US House must uphold truth and justice with Armenian genocide resolution

Friday, November 09, 2007
JURIST

Where have the good individuals gone in Turkey? Turkey's denial and imperial hangover have put them in the endangered species list! Turkey is doing what it has always known best, threaten!

Frank V. Zerunyan, Esq. [Chairman, Board of Governors of the Armenian Bar Association; Mayor Pro Tem, City of Rolling Hills Estates]: "The People’s House of the United States of America must follow its tradition and uphold the truth above all else. The speaker of the House of Representatives must bring HR106 to a floor vote because the resolution is morally, intellectually, historically and legally consistent with our American values. We Americans must insist that our leaders promote truth, justice and the rule of law. We have a long tradition of accepting human dignity as an inalienable right and as the basis of our jurisprudence. No one could have described it better than Alexander Hamilton when he said “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among the old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself; and can never be erased or obstructed by mortal power.”

“Never again” to Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Rwandans, Darfurians is not just a slogan in the context of the human rights debate in the world; it is a call to meaningful action to eradicate genocide from the world. Experts and scholars confirm that each perpetrator has used previous crimes against humanity with impunity. Indeed Adolph Hitler himself in 1939, before the invasion of Poland, reminded his commanding officers in a passionate speech “who still talks now days of the extermination of the Armenians?” Denial is part of and a completion of this crime against humanity. Our values simply do not permit us to be co-conspirators to the commission of or to the completion of the crime of genocide.

At stake today in Washington DC, of course, is the question of whether the United States House of Representatives should offend Turkey by voting on a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide of 1915. All actors in this debate are playing the roles they have played for decades. Turkish generals and ministers are threatening our military ties, the closure of our bases, air space and logistics routes. Ironically however, even before any word of this resolution, those routes were already closed to our sons and daughters when our nation went to war to liberate Iraq. There is also a new threat by our own government; “radical Islam”. Most if not all credible experts will agree that this threat is simply not credible as the Republic of Turkey will never chose this form of a regime over the great and overwhelming legacy of its founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Moreover, such a threat completely undermines contemporary Turkish identity.

While the Republic of Turkey may react negatively in the short term (I think to their own detriment), recognition of the Armenian genocide is warranted for several reasons. First, the HR106 declares the truth; a truth that 23 other countries, 40 American States and countless Counties and Cities have already recognized. Second, no one discusses or even mentions our influence and the basis of our influence over the Republic of Turkey. The truth is that we brought Turkey into the NATO Alliance without which Turkey’s security could not be guaranteed. We support Turkey’s membership into the European Union; an economic “must” for the survival of Turkey into the 21st Century and beyond. We granted Turkey a most favored nation trading status resulting in more than $7 billion in annual trade and $2 billion in US investments in Turkey. Only Israel and Egypt outrank Turkey as recipients of US Foreign assistance. Third, it is inconceivable that even back in the days when the US prized West Germany as a buffer and deterrent against the Soviet Union, we Americans would have refrained from condemning The Shoah (the Holocaust) at Germany’s behest.

Finally and more importantly to this American of Armenian decent, it brings finality and closure, bringing back human dignity to humanity lost almost a century ago. I assume most of you know the eternal resting grounds of your great grand fathers and grand mothers; I don’t. My ancestors formed the first Christian nation in the world (301 A.D.) only to become the invisible Christians in unmarked graves in the early stages of the 20th Century.

I am the great-grand son of a victim and the grand son of a survivor. Ironically, I live today as the direct result of the kindness of a Turkish gentleman (Effendi) who had the humanity to shelter my grand father. I applaud his humanity and encourage our leaders to follow in his footsteps."

Opinions expressed in JURIST's Hotline are the sole responsibility of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of JURIST's editors, staff, or the University of Pittsburgh.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

"The Armenian Genocide" book by Armenian scientist published in Hungary

27.09.2007
PanARMENIAN.Net

The Hungarian translation of "The Armenian Genocide", a work by a renowned Armenian scientist, member of the National Science Academy of Armenia, prof. Nikolay Hovhannisian, was recently published in Budapest. The publication was undertaken by the "Armenian Roots of Transylvania" culture center. The translation was made from the publication of 2005, dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the Genocide.

President of the "Armenian Roots of Transylvania" company and the editor of the Hungarian version of the book Charlotte Iszekutz said that the translation of the book was aimed at representing a rich material on the first Genocide of the 20th century to the wide public and the political circles of Hungary. She also said that their company is striving for the official recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Parliament of Hungary.

! Reproduction in full or in part is prohibited without reference to «PanARMENIAN.Net».

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

RAFAEL DE NOGALES MENDES AND WE

19/04/2007
AZG Armenian Daily #072,

The book ‘Four years under the crescent’ (‘Cuatro anos bajo la Media luna’) is very important and significant for Armenian people as it is about the Armenian Genocide. The acknowledgement of his guilt and the pangs of conscience made him to speak and tell the world about the first genocide and the most nasty and horrible tragedy in the world.

Moscow publishing-house ‘Russki vestnik’ has recently published a new book concerning our biggest national tragedy -The Armenian Genocide. The book called ‘Four years under the crescent’ is written by a Venezuelan writer, service man and political figure Rafael de Nogales Mendes. This book is one of the first worldwide echoes of the Armenian Genocide, which has had a hard and peculiar destiny.

Rafael de Nogales Mendes was born in 1879, in San Christobal, Tachira state, Venezuela. He got higher education in Europe – studying at High Military Colleges of Germany, Belgium and Spain. He was fluent not only in Arabic and Chinese, but also in Spanish, English, French and German. He took part in many military actions and had a stormy life full of events: in 1898 he struggled with Spanish against USA in Cuba, in 1902 he took part in the next Latin-American revolution in Venezuela, in 1904 he appeared in China and took part in Chinese-Japanese war, in 1908 he returned to his motherland but because of the new dictator Chuan Vicente Gomes he had to leave for Europe. Soon he became an officer of the Turkish expeditionary forces in Iran, and after this took part in the evacuation and genocide of the Armenian people of West Armenia as an officer of the Ottoman Empery military forces. So he became one of the eyewitnesses of the First Genocide in the world.

He is a bearer of the Iron Cross Order, which he received at the hands of Wilhelm 2nd for the services in the World War I.

Then he took part in the revolution of Nicaragua. After that he was a military leader of the Palestinian right-bank region. After the war he appeared in Alaska as a gold searcher and soon he became a cowboy in Arizona.

Rafael de Nogales took part also in the Mexican revolution being with Madero side-by-side after the revolution.

He wrote several books about his stormy and rough life – ‘Memories of General Rafael de Nogales’, ‘The plundering of Nicaragua’, ‘Four years under the crescent’, etc.

The book ‘Four years under the crescent’ (‘Cuatro anos bajo la Media luna’) is very important and significant for Armenian people as it is about the Armenian Genocide. The acknowledgement of his guilt and the pangs of conscience made him to speak and tell the world about the first genocide and the most nasty and horrible tragedy in the world.

The book was published in 1920, in Venezuela. The writer was pursued and even an attempt was made upon him, and all the print run of the book was bought and destroyed. The second edition published in the Caracas City by the ‘Casa de Especialidades’ publishing-house had the same fate. At that time Nogales lived in Panama. He died in 1936 from tuberculosis.

Even today its very difficult and even impossible to find this book in the libraries of the world. Only an example of this edition was preserved by an eyewitness of the Armenian Genocide, our compatriot Mihran Kehyan, who had been evacuated from the West Armenia and settled in Venezuela. The mentioned example has been placed at the disposal of the publishing-house in Moscow.

The book has a nice preface. The parts about Armenia and Armenians have detailed footnotes. The book has also a wonderful design and two maps – one is the map of the historical Armenia and the second one is the map of the regions where the genocide has been committed. There are also several photographs in the book that have historical and documentary value. The print run of the book is ten thousand.

Our people must know about Rafael de Nogales and his life. This book is translated and published into English and French languages. It would be great if the book was translated into Armenian and presented to the Armenian reader.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

The truth should be proclaimed loudly

17 March 2007
The Indepependent
By Robert Fisk

When has any publisher ever tried to avoid publicity for his book?

Stand by for a quotation to take your breath away. It's from a letter from my Istanbul publishers, who are chickening out of publishing the Turkish-language edition of my book The Great War for Civilisation. The reason, of course, is a chapter entitled "The First Holocaust", which records the genocide of one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, a crime against humanity that even Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara tried to hide by initially refusing to invite Armenian survivors to his Holocaust Day in London.

It is, I hasten to add, only one chapter in my book about the Middle East, but the fears of my Turkish friends were being expressed even before the Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was so cruelly murdered outside his Istanbul office in January. And when you read the following, from their message to my London publishers HarperCollins, remember it is written by the citizen of a country that seriously wishes to enter the European Community. Since I do not speak Turkish, I am in no position to criticise the occasional lapses in Mr Osman's otherwise excellent English.

"We would like to denote that the political situation in Turkey concerning several issues such as Armenian and Kurdish Problems, Cyprus issue, European Union etc do not improve, conversely getting worser and worser due to the escalating nationalist upheaval that has reached its apex with the Nobel Prize of Orhan Pamuk and the political disagreements with the EU. Most probably, this political atmosphere will be effective until the coming presidency elections of April 2007... Therefore we would like to undertake the publication quietly, which means there will be no press campaign for Mr Fisk's book. Thus, our request from [for] Mr Fisk is to show his support to us if any trial [is] ... held against his book. We hope that Mr Fisk and HarperCollins can understand our reservations."

Well indeedydoody, I can. Here is a publisher in a country negotiating for EU membership for whom Armenian history, the Kurds, Cyprus (unmentioned in my book) - even Turkey's bid to join the EU, for heaven's sake - is reason enough to try to sneak my book out in silence. When in the history of bookselling, I ask myself, has any publisher tried to avoid publicity for his book? Well, I can give you an example. When Taner Akcam's magnificent A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility was first published in Turkish - it uses Ottoman Turkish state documents and contemporary Turkish statements to prove that the genocide was a terrifying historical fact - the Turkish historian experienced an almost identical reaction. His work was published "quietly" in Turkey - and without a single book review.

Now I'm not entirely unsympathetic with my Turkish publishers. It is one thing for me to rage and roar about their pusillanimity. But I live in Beirut, not in Istanbul. And after Hrant Dink's foul murder, I'm in no position to lecture my colleagues in Turkey to stand up to the racism that killed Dink. While I'm sipping my morning coffee on the Beirut Corniche, Mr Osman could be assaulted in the former capital of the Ottoman empire. But there's a problem nonetheless.

Some months earlier, my Turkish publishers said that their lawyers thought that the notorious Law 301 would be brought against them - it is used to punish writers for being "unTurkish" - in which case they wanted to know if I, as a foreigner (who cannot be charged under 301), would apply to the court to stand trial with them. I wrote that I would be honoured to stand in a Turkish court and talk about the genocide. Now, it seems, my Turkish publishers want to bring my book out like illicit pornography - but still have me standing with them in the dock if right-wing lawyers bring charges under 301!

I understand, as they write in their own letter, that they do not want to have to take political sides in the "nonsensical collision between nationalists and neo-liberals", but I fear that the roots of this problem go deeper than this. The sinister photograph of the Turkish police guards standing proudly next to Dink's alleged murderer after his arrest shows just what we are up against here. Yet still our own Western reporters won't come clean about the Ottoman empire's foul actions in 1915. When, for example, Reuters sent a reporter, Gareth Jones, off to the Turkish city of Trabzon - where Dink's supposed killer lived - he quoted the city's governor as saying that Dink's murder was related to "social problems linked to fast urbanisation". A "strong gun culture and the fiery character of the people" might be to blame.

Ho hum. I wonder why Reuters didn't mention a much more direct and terrible link between Trabzon and the Armenians. For in 1915, the Turkish authorities of the city herded thousands of Armenian women and children on to boats, set off into the Black Sea - the details are contained in an original Ottoman document unearthed by Akcam - "and thrown off to drown". Historians may like to know that the man in charge of these murder boats was called Niyazi Effendi. No doubt he had a "fiery character".

Yet still this denial goes on. The Associated Press this week ran a story from Ankara in which its reporter, Selcan Hacaoglu, repeated the same old mantra about there being a "bitter dispute" between Armenia and Turkey over the 1915 slaughter, in which Turkey "vehemently denies that the killings were genocide". When will the Associated Press wake up and cut this cowardly nonsense from its reports? Would the AP insert in all its references to the equally real and horrific murder of six million European Jews that right-wing Holocaust negationists "vehemently deny" that there was a genocide? No, they would not.

But real history will win. Last October, according to local newspaper reports, villagers of Kuru in eastern Turkey were digging a grave for one of their relatives when they came across a cave containing the skulls and bones of around 40 people - almost certainly the remains of 150 Armenians from the town of Oguz who were murdered in Kuru on 14 June 1915. The local Turkish gendarmerie turned up to examine the cave last year, sealed its entrance and ordered villagers not to speak of what they found. But there are hundreds of other Kurus in Turkey and their bones, too, will return to haunt us all. Publishing books "quietly" will not save us.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Sarafian bows to diaspora pressure, says Halaçoglu

10.03.2007
Today's Zaman Ankara

The possibility of joint research by Turkish and Armenian historians into the 1915 tragedy of Anatolian Armenians -- described by Armenians as a genocide but contested by Turkey -- has fallen through, Yusuf Halaçoglu of the Turkish Historical Society (TTK) announced yesterday in Ankara, blaming Armenian diaspora pressure for the failure. .

Late last month, following an open call from Armenian origin British historian Ara Sarafian of the London based-Gomidas Institute, Halaçoglu expressed readiness for a joint case study on the treatment of Armenians in Harput in 1915.

However, in an electronic message sent to Halaçoglu on Feb. 28, Sarafian said: "If the relevant Ottoman records you previously qualified as meticulously kept are not available, then we cannot proceed. Obviously I am disappointed."

Sarafian was referring to Halaçoglu's remarks during a television interview when he said that Sarafian might not be able to find what he was looking for in the Ottoman archives.

Disclosing Sarafian's message at a press conference, Halaçoglu urged Sarafian to disclose what documents he said he had regarding the events of 1915.

"I particularly want to stress that Mr. Sarafian has probably been subject to pressure," said Halaçoglu. "As a matter of fact, a news report published by [bilingual Armenian-Turkish newspaper] Agos said that the Armenian diaspora was very angry with Sarafian because of his proposal to study together with Turkish historians," he added.

"A big opportunity for both Armenians and Turks has been missed after Sarafian gave up the idea of studying together. In spite of this, we will continue keeping our doors open."

Earlier this week, the Gomidas Institute released a press statement and quoted Sarafian as saying: "Primary sources outside of Turkey indicate that the 1915 deportation of Armenians and the liquidation of their properties were regulated by Ottoman state authorities. Armenians were deported under the auspices of Ottoman officials. And most deportees were killed through privations and outright massacres on their way or in their places of exile (most notably Der Zor). Our sources indicate that there never was a resettlement program as historians defending the official Turkish thesis suggest."

The Gomidas Institute said it hoped that Halaçoglu would "explain why he thinks that the Ottoman deportation and resettlement registers the Gomidas Institute requested do not exist -- especially those on Harput and its environs."

Halaçoglu also announced he had agreed with historian David Gaunt of Södertörns University College in Sweden to conduct joint research and jointly open mass graves in Nusaybin in the southeastern Anatolian province of Mardin which Armenian historians say may contain the remains of victims of the alleged 1915 Armenian genocide.

For some time, Halaçoglu and Gaunt have been negotiating a date for a meeting in Mardin. Gaunt offered to come to Turkey between April 23 and 25, Halaçoglu explained and added that he had no hesitation to conduct the opening of the gravesite on April 24, the anniversary of the alleged genocide, thus he accepted Gaunt's proposal for the date.

The mass grave in Nusaybin was discovered by villagers in August 2006. The area where the mass grave lies is on a line of ancient defense works and underground storage rooms dating back to Roman times. Halaçoglu, with a confident tone, reiterated his theory at the press conference that the remains are from Roman times.

Separate samples from the remains will be analyzed both in Turkey and Sweden as well as at an international institute which the Turkish and Swedish delegations will determine jointly, Halaçoglu said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 10, 2007
ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

President of the Turkish History Association, Professor Yusuf Halaçog(lu, said on Friday that British historian of Armenian origin Ara Sarafyan had backed away from a planned initiative for joint studies on the alleged genocide of Armenians.

At a press conference yesterday, Halaçog(lu said the British historian had informed him via e-mail that Sarafyan would not participate in the joint studies. “I am watching the developments from the Turkish media; I am sorry that we'll not be able to move ahead with the joint project,” Sarafyan said in his message to the Turkish historian.

Showing the press a copy of Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, which published an article “Diaspora reactions to Sarafyan,” Halaçog(lu said the article in the bilingual paper indicated why Sarafyan gave up the project.

Halaçog(lu also said mass graves claimed to belong to Armenians and Assyrians in Mardin would start to be opened on April 24, the commemoration day of the alleged genocide.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Missing Ottoman Archival Records on the Armenian Genocide, 1915

by Nora Vosbigian

London, 7 March 2007: Today the Gomidas Institute issued its third statement on its proposal to work on a case study with Turkish historians regarding the treatment of Armenians in Harput in 1915.[1] The Institute's latest statement follows a comment made by Dr. Yusuf Halaçoğlu, the head of the Turkish Historical Society, that vital Ottoman records on the 1915 deportation of Armenians--including in Harput--do not exist in Turkish archives today.

These "non-existent" records are directly related to two Ottoman decrees which Turkish official historians have claimed regulated the deportation and resettlement of Ottoman Armenians in 1915. These were the 30 May 1915 regulations on deportations,[2] and the 10 June 1915 regulations on the resettlement of deportees, the liquidation of their properties, and their compensation in their places of exile.[3]

The Gomidas Institute had asked, based on these regulations, to examine the registers showing details of Armenians who were deported from the Harput plain, as well as the resettlement records accounting for the fate of these deportees further a field. According to these regulations, all deported Armenian had to be registered, person by person (or household by household), village by village; the properties of deportees had to be recorded and liquidated; when the deported were resettled in their places of exile, they had to be compensated in proportion to their original assets. According to these regulations, Ottoman officials had to generate meticulous deportation, resettlement and compensation records which accounted for Armenians who were deported in 1915.

On Monday 26 February 2007 Dr. Halaçoğlu appeared on CNN- Turk's "Manþet" programme where he stated, categorically, that the Ottoman records the Gomidas Institute had asked to examine did not exist. Halaçoğlu stated that : "He [Sarafian] well knows about the archives. He also knows that there are no records for each village listing persons by name. There are no such records. If there were, they would not pose a problem for us. It would be better to produce them."[4] To date Dr. Halaçoğlu has not contacted and explained himself to the Gomidas Institute.

It is not clear how Dr. Halaçoğlu could make such a categorical statement about the non-existence of the Ottoman records we had asked for, given the texts of the Ottoman regulations governing deportations in 1915, or the fact that there are many Ottoman archives in Turkey, and not all Ottoman records in these archives are catalogued. Until there is further clarification, Dr. Halaçoğlu's statement only raises some fundamental questions:

1. Were Ottoman regulations on the 1915 deportations implemented according to the letter of the law? If so, why are we told that the registers related to this mass transfer of people are missing? Are all records missing, for the whole Empire, in both local as well as central archives?

2. If these regulations were not implemented, how was the movement of Armenians, the liquidation of their properties, and the resettlement of deportees regulated? Is it conceivable that none of these regulations were implemented for the whole of the Ottoman Empire from Erzeroum to Yozgat, Izmit and Kayseri? If so, where is the archival trail in Ottoman archives associated with the actual course of events?

3. Is it possible that no records were kept for either deportation or resettlement? If so, was this the case for the whole of the Ottoman Empire, and why were no records kept?

4. If records were kept and then destroyed, why and when were they destroyed? And were they destroyed for the whole of the Ottoman Empire, in both local as well as central archives in Turkey?

5. Is it possible that Dr. Halaçoğlu might be mistaken? Might some of the records we have asked for exist? Is it possible that there might be deportation records, as well as records related to the liquidation of Armenian properties, but no corresponding resettlement records?

According to Ara Sarafian (Gomidas Institute, London), "Primary sources outside of Turkey indicate that the 1915 deportation of Armenians and the liquidation of their properties were regulated by Ottoman state authorities. Armenians were deported under the auspices of Ottoman officials. And most deportees were killed through privations and outright massacres on their way or in their places of exile (most notably Der Zor). Our sources indicate that there never was a resettlement programme as historians defending the official Turkish thesis suggest."

The Gomidas Institute hopes that Dr. Halaçoğlu will explain why he thinks that the Ottoman deportation and resettlement registers the Gomidas Institute requested do not exist--especially those on Harput and its environs.

NOTES

1. For the first two Gomidas Institute statements see http://www.gomidas.org/press/20Feb07PressRelease.htm and http://www.gomidas.org/press/26Feb07PressRelease.htm For the third statement (in Turkish) see http://www.gomidas.org/press/7Mar07PressReleaseTurkish.htm

2 Ottoman Ministry of Interior, Department of Settlement of Tribes and Immigrants, "Regulations Related to Settlement and Board and Lodging and Other Affairs of Armenians Relocated to Other Places Because of War Conditions and Emergency Political Requirements, May 30, 1915" in Turkish Prime Ministry Directorate-General of Press and Information, Documents on Ottoman Armenians, Vol. 2 [n.d.], Document no. 12, pp. 91-93. See copy
http://www.gomidas.org/press/30May1915Regulations.htm

3 "The Regulation Concerning the Management of the Land and Properties Belonging to Armenians Who Have Been Sent Elsewhere as a Result of the State of War and the Extraordinary Political Situation" in Turkish Prime Ministry Directorate-General of Press and Information, Documents [on Ottoman Armenians], Vol. 1 [n.d.], Document no. 28, pp. 76-80. See copy http://www.gomidas.org/press/10June1915Regulations.htm

4 The Turkish transcript of what Dr. Halacoglu said is as follows: "Arşivlerin nasıl olduğunu kendisi [Sarafian] gayet iyi biliyor. Orada her köyden tek tek, isim isim kimlerin nakledilmiş olduğunu bulamayacağını kendisi de biliyor. Öyle bir kayıt zaten yok. olmuş olsa zaten bizim için problem olmaz, daha güzel ortaya konabilir."

HISTORIANS WORKING ON HARPUT 1915 CASE STUDY: AN UPDATE

PRESS RELEASE

Gomidas Institute
42 Blythe Rd.
London W14 0HA
England

Tel: xx 44 20 7603 7242
Web: www.gomidas.org
Email: info@gomidas.org

26 February 2007

Contact Person: Roland Mnatsakanyan

HISTORIANS WORKING ON HARPUT 1915 CASE STUDY: AN UPDATE

Last week the Gomidas Institute offered to begin a case study of the events of 1915 and the fate of Armenians in the Harput region of the Ottoman Empire (see http://www.gomidas.org/press/20Feb07PressRelease.htm). Dr. Halaçoğlu, the head of the Turkish Historical Society, was kind in responding immediately and accepting the proposal.

In a private email, I thanked Dr. Halaçoğlu for accepting my offer and took the opportunity to explain that I will be discussing some aspects of our projected work with other parties so that I can fund raise and contact scholars to cooperate with the proposed project. I could not discuss any project with Dr. Halaçoğlu until I had an agreement in principle from him. I now have such an agreement which is noteworthy for its spirit of cooperation and academic engagement.

The core of our work and our commitment so far, based on the proposal I made to Dr. Halaçoğlu, is the following:

1/ The Gomidas Institute will present Dr. Halaçoğlu relevant records which explain why we think the events of 1915 in the Harput region should be called "abuse," "massacre" and "genocide," and not simply a deportation program (tehcir).

2/ Dr. Halaçoğlu will present Ottoman records which detail how deportations were implemented in Harput and its surrounding villages. He will show deportation records, family by family and village by village, accounting for the deportation and resettlement of each village from the Harput area.

3/ We will then critically examine the materials presented in each set of records and see if either one can make a convincing case. Perhaps both set of records may have merits, or both may be flawed. We will examine the nature of agreement and disagreement between the two sets of records. We will then make these records, as well as our deliberations, open to the scrutiny of others.

The proposed work will have three key stages:

1/ We will collect documentary materials for our respective positions.

2/ We will examine the data presented by our colleagues on the other side.

3/ We will then discuss the two sets of information side by side.

The Gomidas Institute is already planning for (a) the collection of published, archival and audio sources in English, Armenian and German languages related to the events of 1915; (b) the organization of such data so that they can be readily utilized by all; (c) the use of these sources to present an argument about the events of 1915 in Harput. The Institute will list much of this data on its website so that interested parties may contribute or scrutinize our work.

The above discussion reflects my understanding of the proposal I made to Dr. Halaçoğlu on 20 February 2007 . However, the final course of action, including all details, are subject to discussion with Dr. Halaçoğlu. I hope to see Dr. Halaçoğlu in person to discuss these matters soon.

What did we say about the Armenian genocide as it was happening?

February 4, 2007
LA Times

Since Armenian-genocide publishing issues are always popular for vigorous debate, and since there were at least two big related bits of news this week -- Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) reintroducing the non-binding genocide-recognition resolution, plus the ongoing and haunting fallout from the Hrant Dink assassination -- we thought it might be interesting to see how the L.A. Times editorialized about the Armenian genocide as it was happening.

The first of five snippets from separate editorials comes from Dec. 18, 1917:

THE END OF TURKEY
There is as much cause for including Turkey and Bulgaria in our declaration of war as there is for including Austria Hungary. There are as good reasons for the extinction of the Ottoman empire as there are for the overthrow of the government of the Kaiser. For 500 years the Turks have been a curse to Christendom, engaged in war after war and massacre after massacre. [...]

At least half of the Armenian people have been slaughtered in cold blood and the remnant is only preserved now because a large part of Armenia has fallen under Russian control and the other Armenians have taken refuge there.

Continuing with our contemporaneous Armenian-genocide editorials, here's one from Feb. 26, 1918:

When a peace of victory is finally achieved Germany must answer for her inhumanities in Belgium; Austria for the depopulation of Serbia, and Turkey for the almost total annihilation of the Armenians. [...]

If the war continues for another year with Serbia in possession of its arch enemies, it will be impossible to repatriate the Serbian people, for it will have ceased to exist. The same is true to an equal extent with Armenia; but the slaughter has been greater there because the population was greater. In six years the native population of Armenia has sunk from 16,000,000 persons to less than 800,000. Those who have approved this policy of extermination must be made to settle. The German, Austrian and Turkish peoples have approved and taken part in this wholesale murder; they should be forced to pay a huge indemnity.

March 3, 1918:

When the President said the peoples should not be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty, he had in mind the combined force and intrigue by which Germany holds Alsace-Lorraine today, by which Austria continues to dominate and enslave Hungary, and by which Turkey is depopulating Armenia and Arabia.

May 28, 1919:

Armenians for centuries have been ceaselessly disinherited and destroyed. So today even in Armenia proper they are hopelessly outnumbered by the Turks and Kurds. Either these Turks and Kurds would have to be violently deported or some stronger nation would have to keep a permanent army of occupation in this inhospitable country to insure the Armenians against daily revolutions.

June 6, 1919:

Unquestionably the United States is best qualified to handle the affairs of Turkey and Armenia. First, we have no national "ax to grind." No European nation has the slightest reason for jealousy of us or for suspicion as to our intentions and motives. Second, the Turks and Armenians themselves would both prefer us as rulers to any other nation. While unsparingly condemning his atrocious crimes, to the Turk we have been friendly as it is possible to be. American missionaries and Robert College, established by them at Constantinople, have given the Turk a large share of the limited culture and civilization which he has been capable of assimilating. To the Armenian we have been the best of friends. We have fed him in the hour of need; we have often protected him from atrocities at the hands of the Turks. To the Armenian, fleeing from the Turk, the United States is the Land of Promise, his hope and refuge.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.