Do we have to defend the actions of the Committee of Union and Progress?
by: Ümit Kardas*
Today’s Zaman
May 02, 2010
The term "genocide," defined as the "crime of crimes" in the International
Criminal Court’s (ICC) Rwanda decision, was first coined by Raphael Lemkin,
a Jewish lawyer from Poland.
He was particularly known for his efforts to draft the United Nations
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which
cast genocide as an international crime in 1948.
Dealing with the case of Talat Pasa being murdered by an Armenian youth in
Berlin in 1921, Lemkin started to compile a file about what happened in the
Ottoman Empire in connection with the case. As he discussed the case with
his professor, he learned that there was no international law provision that
would entail the prosecution of Talat Pasa for his actions, and he was
profoundly shocked when his professor likened the case of Talat Pasa to a
farmer who would not be held responsible for killing the chickens in his
poultry house.
In 1933, Lemkin used the term "crime against international law" as a
precursor of the concept of genocide during the League of Nations conference
on international criminal law in Madrid. After Nazi-led German forces
devastated Europe and invaded Poland in 1939, Lemkin was enlisted in the
army, but upon the defeat of Polish forces, he fled to the US, leaving his
parents behind. Later, while working as an adviser during the Nuremberg
trials, he would learn that his parents had died in the Nazi concentration
camps.
In his book "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe," published in 1944, he defined
genocide as atrocities and massacre intended to destroy a nation or an
ethnic group. Coining the term from the Greek genos, meaning race or
ancestry, and the Latin cide, meaning killing, Lemkin argued that genocide
does not have to mean direct destruction of a nation. In 1946, the UN
General Assembly issued a declaration on genocide and unanimously accepted
that genocide is a crime under international law, noting that it eliminates
the right of existence of a specific group and shocks the collective
conscience of humanity. However, Lemkin wished that in addition, a
convention should be drafted on preventing and punishing the crime of
genocide. This wish was fulfilled with the signature of the UN Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948. Lemkin died
in a hotel room in New York in a state of poverty at the age of 59 in 1959.
Although they left this idealist defender of humanity alone, people were
gentle enough to write, "The Father of the Genocide Convention," as an
epitaph on his grave.
1843-1908 period
In 1843, Bedirhan Bey, who commanded the Kurds who were assigned with the
duty of massacring the people of Asita (Hosud), connected to the sanjak of
Hakkari, where the population was predominantly Armenian and Nestorian,
persuaded the Armenians and Nestorians who had fled to the mountains to
return and hand in their weapons, and then, the people who were massacred
were largely thrown in the Zap River. The majority of their women and
children were sold as slaves. It is reported that at least 10,000 Armenians
and Nestorians were killed in this massacre. In 1877, the Ottoman Army and
the Russian Army started to fight again, and availing of this opportunity,
Armenia once again became a battlefield, and the soldiers shouted, "Kill the
disbelievers." Circassians and Kurds slaughtered 165 Christian families,
including women and children, in Beyazit. In 1892, Sultan Abdülhamit II
summoned the Kurdish tribal chiefs to Istanbul and gave them military
uniforms and weapons, thereby establishing the Hamidiye cavalry regiment
with some 22,500 members. In this way, Abdülhamit II played with the foreign
policy equilibrium between the UK and Russia and organized a specific
ethnic/religious group against another ethnic/religious group based on a
Muslim vs. non-Muslim dichotomy. The Ottoman administration appointed the
worst enemies of Armenians as their watchdogs, thereby creating a force that
could crush them even in peacetime. The persecution of Armenians peaked in
the Sason massacre in September 1894. Abdülhamit II declared resisting
Armenians rebels and ordered that they should be eradicated.
1908-1914 period
Europe and America extensively supported the Young Turks, who were seeking
legitimacy. When the Movement Army threatened to launch a campaign against
Istanbul, Abdülhamit II declared a constitutional monarchy on July 24, 1908.
Without using any discretion, ordinary people were both amazed and pleased.
Moved by slogans calling for equality, freedom and brotherhood, Armenians,
too, welcomed with joy the government backed and controlled by the Committee
of Union and Progress (CUP).
Britain and France made loans available to the new regime and sent
consultants for the treasury and the navy in support. To alleviate the
consequences of the massacres of 1895 and 1896, European countries increased
their humanitarian assistance. Orphaned children of Christian families were
placed in care centers, and schools were opened in eastern Anatolia. The
introduction of the second constitutional monarchy was seen as an assurance
of the creation of equality among all races and religions. However, on April
14, 1909, a new wave of slaughter started against Christians in Adana. The
CUP’s close alliance with the Armenian Dashnak Party was a major reason for
the rekindling of these massacres. For the first time, these attacks did not
discriminate between Armenians and eastern Christians. Thus, Orthodox
Syriacs, Catholic Syriacs and Chaldeans were also killed. Apparently,
Armenians had stood apart with their penchant for trade, banking, brokerage
as well as for pharmacy, medicine and consulting and other professions; they
constituted a wealthy portion of the population. As a result, this and their
identity as non-Muslims made Armenians a clear target. As a commercial and
agricultural factor, Armenians also served as an obstacle to the
Germanification of Anatolia.
After the Adana massacre of 1909, there was a period of good faith that
lasted until 1913. Meanwhile, the CUP improved its ties with the militant
Dashnak Party. After transforming into a democratic party, this party was
represented with three deputies in the Assembly of Deputies (Meclis-i
Mebusan) that was renewed in 1912. This assembly also had six independent
Armenians members. In 1876, the Assembly of Deputies had 67 Muslim and 48
non-Muslim deputies. However, in January 1913, following the defeat in the
first Balkan War, the CUP overthrew the government (known as the Raid of
Bab-i Ali) and started to implement a policy to homogenize the population
through a planned ethnic cleansing and destruction and forced relocation.
Talat Pasa prepared plans for homogenizing the population by relocating
ethnic groups to places other than their homeland. According to the plan,
Kurds, Armenians and Arabs would be forced to migrate from their homeland,
and Bosnians, Circassians and other Muslim immigrants would be settled in
their places. The displaced ethnic groups would not be allowed to comprise
more than 10 percent of the population in their destinations. Moreover,
these groups would be quickly assimilated. The Greeks had already been
relocated from the western coasts of the country in 1914.
In addition to the regular army, Enver Pasa believed that there must be
special forces that would conduct undercover operations. Thus, he
transformed the Special Organization (Teskilat-i Mahsusa), which he had
established as a secret organization before the Balkan War, into an official
organization. This organization had intelligence officers, spies, saboteurs
and contract killers among its members. It also had a militia comprised of
Kurdish tribes. Former criminals worked as volunteers for this organization.
Talat Pasa created the main body of the Teskilat-i Mahsusa from gangs of
former criminals whom he arranged to be released from prisons. In Anatolia,
the Teskilat-i Mahsusa worked at the disposal of the 3rd Army.
Forced relocations of 1915-1916
The German-backed pan-Islamist policy implied a fatal solution for
non-Muslims living within the borders of the empire. The conditions for the
forced relocation campaign launched in 1915 were different from previous
ones. The two-month campaign covered not only Armenians but also all
Christians in eastern Anatolia. These relocations could not be considered a
resettlement because the specified destinations were not inhabitable and
only very few could make it there. Many people were immediately killed
either inside or outside the settlements where they were born or living, and
others were murdered on the roads on which they were forced to walk on foot.
Most of those who were immediately killed were men. Women and children
formed the largest portion of the groups banished toward the southern
deserts. There were continual attacks on these processions, accompanied by
rapes of women and kidnappings of children. Provincial officials did not
take any measures to provide the convoys with food, water and shelter.
Rather, high-level officials and local politicians mobilized death squads
against them. These squads would confiscate the goods of the relocated
people, sending some of them to the Interior Ministry and embezzling the
rest.
Eventually, the forced relocation campaign turned into a series of
atrocities which even bothered the Germans. The ongoing campaign was never a
population exchange. As noted by British social historian David Gaunt, the
purpose of these forced relocation campaigns was to remove a specific
population from a specific location. Because it was intended to be performed
quickly, this added to the intimidation, violence and cruelty involved. As
resettlement was not intended, neither the administration nor the army cared
about where the deported population was going or whether they would survive
physically. The high degree of the culture and civilization exhibited by
Armenians made the atrocities against them all the worse in the eyes of the
world. Talat Pasa mistakenly made his last conclusion: "There is no longer
an Armenian problem."
Conclusion and suggestions
The foregoing account cannot duly express what really happened in its scope,
dimension and weight. These atrocities and massacres were not only regularly
reported on in European and US newspapers, but were also evidenced in the
official documents of Britain and the US and even Germany and Austria, which
were allies of the Ottoman Empire, and in the minutes of the Ottoman Court
Martial (Divan-i Harbi), the descriptions of diplomats and missionaries, in
commission reports and in the memoirs of those who survived them.
No justification, even the fact that some Armenian groups revolted with
certain claims and collaborated with foreign countries, can be offered for
this human tragedy. It is misleading to discuss what happened with reference
to genocide, which is merely a legal and technical term. No technical term
is vast enough to contain these incidents, which are therefore
indescribable. Atrocities and massacres are incompatible with human values.
It is more degrading to be regarded as a criminal in the collective
conscience of humanity than to be tried on charges of genocide.
A regime that hinges upon concealing and denying the truth will make the
state and the society sick and decadent. The politicians, academics,
journalists, historians and clerical officials in Turkey should try to
ensure that the society can face the truth. To face the truth is to become
free. We can derive no honor or dignity from defending our ancestors who
were responsible for these tragedies. It is not a humane or ethical stance
to support and defend the actions of Abdülhamit II and senior CUP members
and their affiliated groups, gangs and marauders. Turkey should declare to
the world that it accepts said atrocities and massacres and that in
connection with this, it advocates the highest human values of truth,
justice and humanism while condemning the mentality and actions of those who
committed them in the past.
After this is done, it should invite all Armenians living in the diaspora to
become citizens of the Turkish Republic. As the Armenians of the diaspora
return to the geography where their ancestors lived for thousands of years
before being forced to abandon it, leaving behind their property, memories
and past, this may serve to abate their sorrow, which has now translated
into anger. The common border with Armenia should be opened without putting
forward any condition. This is what conscience, humanity and reason direct
us to do. Turkey will become free by getting rid of its fears, complexes and
worries by soothing the sorrows of Armenians.
*Dr. Ümit Kardas is a retired military judge.
02.05.2010
Op-Ed