Sharon Advocate, MA
June 24 2005
The Armenian Genocide
Friday, June 24, 2005
Below is from the Web site,
Before the genocide
Somewhat surprisingly to many, Armenians and Turks lived in
relative harmony in the Ottoman empire for centuries. Armenians were
known as the “loyal millet.”
During these times, although Armenians were not equal and had to
put up with certain special hardships, they were pretty well accepted
and there was relatively little violent conflict. Things began to
change for a number of reasons. Nationalism, a new force in the
world, reared its head and made ethnic groupings self-conscious, and
the Ottoman Empire began to crumble.
It became known as “the sick man of Europe” and the only thing
holding it together was the European powers’ lack of agreement on how
to split it up. As other Christian minorities gained their
independence one by one, the Armenians became more isolated as the
only major Christian minority.
Armenians and Turks began to have conflicting dreams of the
future. Some Armenians began to call for independence like the Greeks
and others had already received, while some Turks began to envision a
new Pan-Turkic empire spreading all the way to Turkic speaking parts
of Central Asia. Armenians were the only ethnic group in between
these two major pockets of Turkish speakers and the nationalist Turks
wanted to get rid of them altogether.
As European powers began to ask for assurances that Armenians
receive better treatment, the government began to treat the Armenians
worse and worse. In the 1890’s hundreds of thousands of Armenians
died in pogroms ordered by Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
A coup by ‘progressive’ Young Turks in 1908 replacing the
Sultans government was supported by Armenians. Unfortunately,
promised reforms never came, and in fact a triumvirate of extreme
Turkish nationalists took complete dictatorial control, Enver, Jemal
and Talat. It was they who masterminded the plan to completely
eradicate the Armenian race in a step towards fulfilling their
pan-Turkic dreams.
World War I gave the Young Turk government the cover and the excuse
to carry out their plan. The plan was simple and its goal was clear.
On April 24, 1915, commemorated worldwide by Armenians as Genocide
Memorial Day, hundreds of Armenian leaders were murdered in Istanbul
after being summoned and gathered. The now leaderless Armenian people
were to follow.
Across the Ottoman Empire (with the exception of Constantinople,
presumably due to a large foreign presence), the same events
transpired from village to village, from province to province.
The remarkable thing about the following events is the virtually
complete cooperation of the Armenians. For a number of reasons they
did not know what was planned for them and went along with “their”
government’s plan to “relocate them for their own good.” First, the
Armenians were asked to turn in hunting weapons for the war effort.
Communities were often given quotas and would have to buy additional
weapons from Turks to meet their quota. Later, the government would
claim these weapons were proof that Armenians were about to rebel.
The able bodied men were then “drafted” to help in the wartime
effort. These men were either immediately killed or were worked to
death. Now the villages and towns, with only women, children, and
elderly left were systematically emptied. The remaining residents
would be told to gather for a temporary relocation and to only bring
what they could carry. The Armenians again obediently followed
instructions and were “escorted” by Turkish Gendarmes in death
marches.
The death marches led across Anatolia, and the purpose was
clear. The Armenians were raped, starved, dehydrated, murdered, and
kidnapped along the way. The Turkish Gendarmes either led these
atrocities or turned a blind eye.
Their eventual destination for resettlement was just as telling
in revealing the Turkish governments goal: the Syrian Desert, Der
Zor. Those who miraculously survived the march would arrive to this
bleak desert only to be killed upon arrival or to somehow survive
until a way to escape the empire was found. Usually those that
survived and escaped received assistance from those who have come to
be known as “good Turks,” from foreign missionaries who recorded much
of these events and from Arabs.
After the genocide
After the war ended, the Turkish government held criminal trials
and found the triumvirate guilty in abstentia. All three were later
executed by Armenians. Turkey agreed to let the U.S. draw the border
between the newly born Republic of Armenia and the Turkish
government. What is now called Wilsonian Armenia included most of the
six western Ottoman provinces as well as a large coastline on the
Black Sea. Cilicia, a separate Armenian region on the Mediterranean,
was to be a French mandate. Mustafa Kemal’s forces pushed the newly
returned Armenian refugees and forces from these lands and forced a
new treaty to be written which was an insult to Armenian victims.
They were basically told never to return and that they would never
receive compensation. The Kars and Ardahan provinces of Armenia were
taken as well in an agreement with the Soviet Union.
Contemporary Events
On the 50th anniversary of the genocide, the scattered survivors
of the genocide and their children around the world began
commemorating the genocide on April 24th, the day which marked the
start of the full-scale massacres in 1915. Many Armenian Genocide
Monuments have been built around the world since, as well as smaller
plaques and dedications.
The Turkish government has in the past few decades been denying
that a genocide ever occurred and spending millions of dollars to
further that view. This is adding insult to injury and will cause bad
feelings to continue much longer than would otherwise be the case
between the peoples. Those who say forget about it, it is in the
past, are wrong. Unless crimes like this are faced up to and
compensated for, they will be committed again and again by people who
do not fear prosecution or justice. Read what Hitler said before
beginning the Jewish Holocaust here.
A class action suit against New York Life insurance company by
genocide survivors was filed in 1999. They were sued for not being
forthcoming in paying up for policies of those killed in the
genocide. The suit was settled in 2004 for $20 million, and payouts
began to individuals and some Armenian charitable organizations.