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E-MAIL. anc_skand@yahoo.se
Swedish MP questions the FM Carl Bildt on the issue
of Mass grave recently discovered in Turkey
(Interpolation in Swedish Parliament on 12 December 2006)
Stockholm (anc-scandinavia):
Hans Linde, a Swedish member of the Swedish Parliament
belonging to the Vaenster Party /Left/ will be
addressing the Parliament on the 12 of December on
the issue of the mass grave discovered in Turkey
last October, which could contain the remains of
Armenian Genocide victims.
Hans Linde will specifically ask the Foreign Minister
to work for the creation of an expert commission that
would in a scientific manner identify the cause of
death and the identity of the remains discovered in
the mass grave.
Last October a mass grave was discovered when
villagers from Xirabebaba (Kuru) in Eastern Turkey,
were digging a grave for one of their relatives when
they came across to a cave full of skulls and bones of
reportedly 40 people. that according to historian
Davis Gaunt might contain remains of Armenian Genocide
victims.
According to a The Xirabebaba residents assumed they
had uncovered a mass grave of 300 Armenian villagers
massacred during the Genocide of 1915. They informed
Akarsu Gendarmerie headquarters, the local military
unit, about the discovered remains. Kurdish newspaper
published in Turkish Ulkede Ozgur Gundem, the Turkish
Gendarmerie then had has instructed local villagers to
keep silence about the discovery. Turkish army
officers, according to the Kurdish newspaper,
instructed the villagers to block the cave entrance
and make no mention of the remains buried in it. The
officers said an investigation would take place. The
newspaper reported on the developments and the Turkish
military’s attempt to hide the news. Journalists, who
had arrived to obtain more information, were denied
access to the cave.
As the mass burial made news, local Gendarmerie made
another visit to the villagers. The latter were
pressed to report the name of the person who leaked
the mass burial discovery to the press. The villagers
were warned not to show anyone directions to the cave.
The victims of the mass grave, according to Sodertorn
University History Professor David Gaunt, are most
likely the 150 Armenian and 120 Assyrian males from
the nearby town of Dara (now Oguz) killed on June 13,
1915. David Gaunt Believes that it could also be the
remains of Armenian women from Mardin who were driven
out and executed at that place. It could belong to
Assyrian children, men and women from the prison of
Nusaybin that were executed in the same place on the
28th of June 1915.
Professor Gaunt is an expert on the region’s history
and soon will his latest book entitled Massacres,
Resistance, Protectors, Muslim-Christian Relations in
Eastern Anatolia During World War I, (Gorgias Press,
New Jersey, 2006 ) describes 200 similar massacres
carried out in 1915, in Tur Abdin, a region in
today’s Eastern Turkey. These were massacres carried
out by the governor Reshit Bey, a representative of
the ottoman state apparatus.
The Turkish Human Rights Association since then has
been vocal about the issue and has addressed an open
letter to the Minister of Interior Affairs in Turkey
demanding the creation of an independent commission
that should look at the issue closer and identify the
cause of death and identify the ethnicity the
discovered human remains.
Hans Linde, the Swedish MP, will also demand answers
on such questions whether FM Carl Bildt is willing to
cooperate so that Sweden as an individual state and as
a member of the EU, can work to bring the Turkish
authorities to open the Ottoman archives for
international Research, and decriminalize all
research and debate on the Genocide of Armenians and
Assyrians under the Ottoman responsibility. He
justifies the importance of the issue by arguing that
‘reconciliation between the Armenian and Turkish
nations is not possible to achieve unless Turkey
opens its archives for research and free debate is
allowed. To talk and write about the Armenian
Genocide should be totally decriminalized’. Every
country’s history contains dark chapters he writes,
However, democratic states should be able to freely
study, map , debate and discuss these unpleasant pages
of history. Turkey cannot be an exception’.
ANC Scandinavia
Contact:
anc_skand@yahoo.se
Below you can find more info on David Gaunt’s new
book:
Author: David Gaunt
Title: Massacres, Resistance, Protectors:
Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during
World War I
Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
Publication Date: 10/10/2006
ISBN: 1-59333-301-3
Format: Paperback xvii + 535 pages, 22 illustrations
This is a pioneering historical investigation of the
Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syrian Christian minorities
during World War I, who suffered the same fate as the
Armenians. Ethnic cleansing and large-scale massacres
occurred throughout northern Mesopotamia and parts of
Ottoman-occupied Iran. Based on primary sources from
official Russian, Turkish, and West European archives,
as well as hitherto unused manuscript sources and oral
histories published here for the first time, this book
attempts to give a full picture of the events of 1915.
Concentration is on the Assyrians of Urmia and Hakkari
and on the Syrians of Diyarbekir province,
particularly in Tur Abdin.