How To End A Genocide Debate

I don't quite get one point: If Turkey, and PM Erdoghan, is sincere and genuine about an "investigation" about the Genocide then WHY DOES tURKEY STILL PUBLICALLY PILLIORY, PROSECUTE AND PERSECUTE, EVEN MURDER - E.G HRANT DINK ON 19 JAN 2007 - TURKEY'S BEST MINDS who want to debate the issue but are legally barred through draconian laws restricting freedom of expression? Secondly, regarding the latter (freedom of expression, human rights and democracy and its serious lack thereof in Turkey) Mr Byford is deffeningly silent. Shouldn't the US concentrate on these issues and tell Turkey 'enough is enough - GROW UP'! Genocide denial, and denial of the Armenian Genocide by a bullying and authoritarian Turkey in particular, is not a problem that Armenia can be expected to face on its own - any more than Czekoslovakia or Poland would be expected if the Nazi regime in Berlin had survived in some shape after 1945. The regime in Turkey, likewise based on xenophobic racist-nationalism, is an illegitimate creation of post WWI deals and settlement by the "Great Powers". The Turkish regime is unable and unwilling to adequately reform itself and embrace democratic, liberal and civilised values: its entire education system to this day does not have one single kind word to say about the Armenians who for centuries contributed so much to the flourishing of Ottoman industry, arts, culture, etc.; on the contrary they are openly referred to EVEN NOW, as gaurs/pigs and traitors... . And as far as other religious minorites are concerned, well soon there won't be any left as there are only a handful of Greeks and Jews left in the country, thanks to the inherent and open racism in the system. Its treatment of the huge Kurdish and Alevi population is hardly better than the treatment the Third Reich meted out on its Jewish and other "untermensch" groups. ISN'T IT HIGH TIME THE US, AND EUROPE AS A WHOLE, CALLED A SPADE BY ITS NAME AND DEALT WITH TURKEY THE WAY THEY TREATED THE THIRD REICH REGIME?

this dude is a moron, pure and simple. what's he going to talk about next week, the "so-called holocaust of the jews"?

"It is an unfortunate fact that Armenia is not interested in peace"

yes ... yes ... yes ...

This is a balanced, sensible policy advise. Armenians, Turks and Kurds lived in peace and harmony for centuries. All suffered terribly during the First World War. Recent hopeful developments between Turkey and Armenia may open the doors for many more centuries of peace and harmony. The Armenian diaspora should not stand in the way. This is in the best interest of the US and most importantly in the best interest of Armenia. Armenian diaspora should put all their energy in developing the economy and democratic institutions of Armenia.

South Australia Passes Armenian Genocide Motion

ADELAIDE: An Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC Australia)
delegation was present as South Australian Parliament's Legislative
Council passed a motion recognising the Armenian Genocide as "one of
the greatest crimes against humanity".

The motion, introduced by the Hon. David Ridgway MLC (Leader of the
Liberal Opposition in Legislative Council) and seconded by the
Hon. Bernard Finnigan (Member of the Labor Government in Legislative
Council) went through unopposed, and sees the Upper House of South
Australia's parliament join the New South Wales parliament in
condemning "the genocide of the Armenians and all other acts of
genocide".

However this motion is unique, as it is the first to include
recognition of recently-uncovered material detailing the significant
humanitarian effort by the people of South Australia who aided the
victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide almost a century ago.

http://anc.org.au/news.php?extend.140

"You are repeating the same things, to obscure the arguments of the others"
You , too !

"MG , a force de copier / coller des liens/articles en francais , vous ne savez ou vous en etes !!! "
Et vous, vous vous répétez, 24avril1915/Imprecriptible/Yerevan.
You are repeating the same things, to obscure the arguments of the others.

MG , a force de copier / coller des liens/articles en francais , vous ne savez ou vous en etes !!!

Article from Ugur Umit Ungor :

CUP Rule in Diyarbekir Province, 1913-1923 : U??ur Ümit Üngör

Ugur Umit Ungor University of Amsterdam, Department of History Masterâ??s thesis â??Holocaust and Genocide Studiesâ?? June 2005

2.1 Mobilization and war The Committee of Union and Progress had not remained idle in Diyarbekir province before the war. The first CUP office in Diyarbekir was opened on 23 July 1908 by Ziyâ Gökalp, who after all was a native of the region, and also was its representative in the partyâ??s Central Commitee.159 Gökalp began publishing the newspaper Peyman, which adopted a relatively modest tone and emphasized coexistence of the various Ottoman subjects.160 After the catastrophic defeats of the Balkan wars, the atmosphere changed as relations polarized. The CUP dictatorship exerted its influence in this province through a network of mainly Kurdish members. The most influential CUP members in Diyarbekir were those related to the wealthy and powerful Kurdish Pirinççizâde dynasty, who owned large estates in the province, including the rice fields west of Diyarbekir city.161 One of their kinsmen was deputy Aziz Feyzi (1879-1933), who was known for his coarseness and fanatic patriotism. He was the son of Pirinççizâde Arif, who passed away in 1909 and had adhered to the Kurdish Assistance and Progress Society (see page 30). According to a German report Feyzi had undertaken a study trip to Germany in 1911.162 On behalf of many other Kurdish notables, he vehemently protested in the Ottoman parliament against the proposed government plan of expropriating Kurdish landowners. Feyzi was a CUP hardliner. He had held fierce and hostile discussions with Armenian member of parliament Vartkes Serengulian (1871-1915) in which he accused Vartkes of sinister Armenian separatist revolutionary designs.163 He became more and more fanatic in his anti-Armenian emotions, and reportedly had Ohannes Kazazian, (...) http://www.ermenisoykirimi.net/thesis.pdf

Translated into ENGLISH. Of course. Sorry.

The volume of Ottoman archives translated into Turkish, which I quoted in me precedent comment, is available online:

http://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Documents2.pdf

"From: Erzurum
3.5.331 (16 July 1915)
TO THE THIRD ARMY COMMAND ERZURUM
The contingent assigned to protect Armenian convoys against attacks by Kurdish gangs was attacked by Kurdish gangs from all four directions on their way through the Kop mountains on 28.4.331 (11 July 1915).
The contingent, dispatched from Bayburt under the command of 2nd Lt. Salih Efendi comprised 56 enlisted men from the communications zone troops. After a two-hour armed clash, two of the gang were killed, the rest escaped. The contingent suffered no casualties and the Armenian convoy was saved, according to the information from Bayburt post.
Communications Inspector
Fuat Ziva"
"Documents on Ottoman Armenians", Ankara, 1983, volume II, p. 97.

"The assertion that 1673 officials were hung by the CUP for brutality to Armenians is false. The figure was asserted by Kamurun Gurun in 1985, and did not come from the then-closed Archives. The figure can not be verified."
Kämuran Gürün gave the figure of 1 397, and this book was published in 1983 (the English translation in 1985, yes). http://www.eraren.org/index.php?Lisan=en&Page=YayinIcerik&IcerikNo=217
The updated figure of 1 673 is indicated by Yusuf Halacoglu and Yusuf Sarinay. The documents about these trials are currently in free access, and some were published in 2007, with a translation into modern Turkish and into English.
The strongly pro-Armenian historian Hilmar Kaiser said, about this source:

"He [Yusuf Halacoglu] has the material on the prosecution of war criminals during the war. Meanwhile, I have obtained my own copy of the material, but there has to be academic respect???it means, he has the right to publish it first.
According to this material, people who stole money, killed etc., were punished. The list identifies the perpetrators, what they did and what their punishment was. We know, for example, that the murderers of Zohrab and Vartkes Effendi were executed by Djemal, and there were other executions. People who stole money from the Armenian population and put it in their own pocket instead of transferring it to the government got punished."

http://www.hairenik.com/armenianweekly/fea03080804.htm

Both Hilmar Kaiser and Ara Sarafian acknolwedges that the Ottoman archives are open, unlike the archives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in Boston, Armenian Patriarcate in Jerusalem and Zoryan Institute.

"The break-up of the Ottoman Empire has been arrested at the borders of Anatolia, where Turkey has asserted her independence as successfully as her former Near Eastern subjects have asserted theirs in the Balkan Peninsula; and in this last stage in the redistribution of Near and Middle Eastern territories, the atrocities which have accompanied it from the beginning have been revealed in their true light, as crimes incidental to an abnormal process, which all parties have committed in turn, and not as the peculiar practice of one denomination or nationality. Finally, the masterful influence of our Western form of society upon people of other civilisations can be discerned beneath the new phenomena and the old, omnipresent and indefatigable in creation and destruction, like some gigantic force of nature."
Arnold J. Toynbee, "The Western Question in Greece and Turkey", London-Bombay-Sydney, Constable, 1922.

"But when the Turkish troops came near to Illidja, the Armenians began again to imprison the Turks in Erzeroum, and, especially on the 25th of February [1918], the arrests had reached vast proportions. In the night of the 26th, the Armenians, eluding the vigilance of the Russian officers, indulged again in massacres, but, frightened by the Turkish soldiers, fled. These massacres were not at all by chance. On the contrary, they were so well organized that all those who had not been arrested at first were so afterwards, and then put to death one by one,. The Armenians congratulated themselves on having massacred that evening three thousand persons."
Lieutenant-Colonel Twerdokhleboff, "War Journal of the Second Russian Fortress Artillery Regiment. Translated from the original Russian manuscrit", Istanbul, 1919. http://louisville.edu/a-s/history/turks/Khlebof%20War%20Journal.pdf

"The fact that large numbers of Armenians lost their lives does not prove the existence of a premeditated plan of annihilation, and in and of itself tells us nothing about who is to be held responsible for these deaths. As I showed in my article, large numbers of Turkish civilians died as a result of severe shortages of food and epidemics, while large numbers of Turkish soldiers, especially the wounded in battle, perished for lack of adequate medical care and as a result of neglect and incompetence on the part of their own officers. Yet these deaths surely do not prove that the Ottoman government???ultimately responsible for all of these conditions???sought and intentionally caused the death of its own people and soldiers. Objective results are not the same as subjective intent."
Guenter Lewy, "Commentary", February 2006.

Part III
This is one of the places which has suffered most from the suspension of rule of law in the region for the sake of the so-called ???unity of Turkey???.

And it is the same place where, 96 years ago, masses of mostly Assyrians/Syriacs but Armenians as well, though in smaller number, were either massacred outright or driven on foot to the mountains where death was certain as a result of starvation, destitution and exposure to harsh weather conditions without any shelter. This was what happened in many
places to Armenians throughout Asia Minor during that reign of terror.

Now the ???death wells??? represents the continuation of the bloodshed and suppressed truths. After 96 years there are still unburied dead bodies to be searched for by means of excavations.

Yes, ???All suppressed truths become poisonous,??? said Nietzsche many, many years ago, but he continued: ?????? And let everything break up - which can be broken up by our truths! Many a house is still to be built!???

???This is the only way that would bring justice to our lives ??? I mean recognition of the damage done and making amends,??? stated Professor Ayse Günaysu in his report at ???Legacy of the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire??? conference in Stockholm held on Mar.23, 2009.

Part II:

But people tend to be persuaded; so in Turkey the great majority of people sincerely believe that if it is a question of life or death for the ???fatherland??? the state machinery may rightfully resort to unlawful methods ??? in other words, that the so-called ???national interests??? justify all means. This is how the suppressed truth and the methods of that suppression poison minds generation after generation.
So, it is no surprise that for nearly a century Turkey saw no real democracy, no real peace, no real well-being. Violence has always been part of our lives. Military coups followed one another and in the absence of an actual military rule, there has always been sometimes overt, sometimes covert, threat of it. Since the foundation of the Republic, the Kurdish uprisings and their violent repression continued. In the last 30 years the land which was once the homeland of Armenians and Assyrians as well, has been suffering from what the authorities call the ???fight against terrorism???. Evacuated villages, forced migration, people under custody going missing and unsolved murders became the characteristics of the
region.
The bloodshed has never stopped since 1915.

It???s not only the violence. Permit me to borrow here what I had written on the occasion of the 91st anniversary of the Genocide, which Khatchig Mouradian quoted in his article published by Znet on April 23, 2006:

???A big curse fell upon this land [in 1915]. The settlements where once artisans, manufacturers, and tradesmen produced and traded goods, where theatres and schools disseminated knowledge and aesthetic fulfillment, where churches and monasteries refined the souls, where beautiful architecture embodied a great, ancient culture; in short, a civilized, lively urban world was turned into a rural area of vast, barren, silent, uninhabited land and settlements marked by buildings without a history and without a personality.???

Nowadays an excavation is going on in Silopi, to investigate the allegations that in the 1990???s the dead bodies of persons
who went missing under custody by security forces had been dumped there. So far some bones, hair and pieces of clothing have been found - what was left after the clean-up operations - and sent to forensic laboratory for analysis.