Journal of Turkish Daily
8 Mar 2005
List of Humanitarian Crimes Do Not Mention Western War Crimes, but
the Armenian
Kemalettin TASHKIRAN
‘The latest genocide and bloody events list’ published by the
“Conscience Committee” of the Genocide Commemoration Museum in the
United States (US) claims that Turkey killed 1.5 million Armenians in
Turkey in 1915 though there was no country with name ‘Turkey’ at that
time. Turkish politicians and diplomats argued that the list is
political and biased. Turkey was founded in 1923.
According to the list, seven million people had been murdered in
Ukraine by the former Russian leader Joseph Stalin in 1932-33, the
Japanese killed 300,000 Chinese in the Nanjing massacre, six million
Jews had been murdered in Nazi Germany between 1938-1945, two million
people under the Pol Pot regime had been killed in Kampuchea in
1975-79, 200,000 people in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, and 800,000
people in Rwanda in 1994 had been murdered. Strangely the list does
not mention Western war crimes except the Nazis. For instance the
Algerian Massacre (if not genocide) or the American war crimes are
not mentioned by the list. More than 900,000 civilian Algerians were
massacred by the French Army.
Turkey has never accepted the Armenian claims. According to the
Armenian lobby groups 1,5 million Armenians were killed by the
Ottoman officers. However the archive documents clearly show that the
number of the whole Armenian population in the Ottoman territories
was less than 1,3 million. Armenian armed groups rioted against the
Ottoman authorities during the First World War and many Armenians
joined the Russian Army. The Istanbul Government decided to relocate
the Armenian population in the Eastern provinces, while the rest of
the Armenians were not affected by the decision.
Thousands of armed Armenian groups killed about 500,000 Muslim
(Turkish and Kurdish) and Jewish Ottoman citizens. Many Armenians
were killed in the ethnic conflicts. However more died due to the bad
weather, epidemic diseases and war circumstances.
The extreme Armenian nationalists made co-operation with the French
and other occupying forces against the Turkish War of Independence
and killed thousands of Kurds and Turks in the Eastern Anatolian
provinces. With the written agreements the modern Turkish-Armenian
borders were drawn. However the extreme Armenian nationalists
(Tashnaks) established a terror-network (NEMESIS) and started to
assassin the former Ottoman ministers. During the 1970s and 80s, more
than 40 Turkish diplomats and many Turkish and foreigners were killed
by the Armenian terrorists.
There are strong Armenian lobbies in US, France and Canada, and the
influential Armenian lobbying groups manipulate the Western media and
politics. The anti-Turkish groups in the West in particular abuse the
problem.