Armenia Solidarity and Nor Serount Cultural Association Press Release
c/o The Temple of Peace, Cardiff
07718982732
[email protected]
Ar menian Genocide Rememberance Day Bill in the UK Parliament
We are pleased that the bill by the Member of Parliament Andrew
Dismore, who has helped us so much in the past is scheduled to be given
a second reading today, (16th October). This is the first time ever that
a bill which is potentially destined for a vote has reached so far.
Sixty-three private bills by Members of Paliuament are scheduled to
be debated today, of which the Armenian Genocude Day bill is down at
number five. Even though it came very high in the list, the procedure
of Parliament means that usually there is only time to debate two or
three such bills and all the other bills will "fall" The fact that so
little time is available for parliament to debate such important bills
is all the more appalling as ninety years have elapsed since the
"Turkish Rule in Armenia" debate in the House of Lords in 1919. Ninety
years ago, the government made promises which were subsequently broken,
and as if to excuse themselves, the present British government even deny
the facts on which the promises were made.(note that Earl Curzon , for
the government, even then had little time to stay in the debate. Now,
after waiting for ninety years, there is still not enough time to debate
the issue.)
Details of the bill are given below:
"Armenian Genocide Rememberance Day Bill. Mr. Andrew Dismore, supported
by John Austin, Mr. Virendra Sharma, Clive Efford, Ms Karen Buck and Rob
Marris, presented a Bill to introduce a national day to learn about and
remember the Armenian genocide. "
Parliamentarians will be sent this to remind them of the
government’s past promises to the Armenians,containing their recognition
of Turkey’s central involvement in the Genocide
TURKISH RULE IN ARMENIA.
House of Lords Debate 17 December 1919 vol 38 cc279-300
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY rose to call attention to the
sufferings of the Christian refugees, Armenian, Nestorian, and
Chaldæan, who are still prevented from returning to their homes by the
Turkish troops who are occupying the districts from which they were
driven, and to the repeated declarations made by the Government that all
Turkish rule should cease in Armenia and the other districts referred
to; and to ask His Majesty’s Government whether they can give any
information as to the steps taken or proposed in relation thereto.
The Blue Book.
"The appalling stories of wholesale massacre, of expulsion of great
populations from their homes under conditions which could only be
described as in most cases slowly dragged-out massacre, are set before
us in incident after incident, showing what has happened on a scale so
vast as is scarcely credible in our own time or, indeed, in any time.
Every one who studies the subject at once begins to ask himself: Are the
outrages which are here described the misdeeds of lawless ruffians who
are out of hand and incapable of knowing what mercy or humanity means,
or can they be the deliberate acts of a Government itself? On that
question very large issues would necessarily turn. Unhappily the
Blue-book leaves the impartial reader in no doubt whatever as to the
answer which must be given. The book is no mere string of incidents. It
gives the coherent story of these years, introduced and supplemented by
narratives of the past and summaries of what has happened in the
present which enable us by the lucidity, the range, and the clear
arrangement of the whole, to deal with that question without hesitation
and to arrive at the conclusion which is, I think, inevitable. No one
reading it carefully but must be convinced, not, I will say, of the
Turkish Government’s complicity in these matters, but of its authorship,
the actual authorship of these unspeakable outrages.
At the very outset of the war a deliberate plan was adopted, it is
perfectly clear, by the Turkish Government for dealing with these long
oppressed peoples, peoples in their various groups whose courage, whose
loyalty to their Christian faith and, in some cases, whose industry aid
grit had enabled them to hold their own for centuries and centuries in
face of oppression, and poverty, anti misrule. The Government decided
upon a cold-blooded plan of a double character. It was first to be a
plan of quite deliberate massacre on a large scale, and it was next to
be a plan of so-called deportation from the occupied regions which, in
very many cases, merely meant massacre in a deferred degree.
Different regions were taken in order. The records which are here
brought to light show that there were telegrams at the same time sent to
the various parts of the Empire so that the massacre, if it was to be a
massacre, should take place at the same time in different places. The
deportations were carefully arranged by a plan which makes it utterly
impossible to suppose that they were the acts of local governors, or
local authorities, or that they emanated from any other source than
headquarters, whether or no those headquarters had an identity different
from that which belonged to the Turkish Government.
What took place is described in this book by eye-witnesses.
Narrative after narrative gives it in detail. These are not for the most
part the accounts of victims who had survived; they are narratives by
calm, competent, highly-skilled observers, familiar with the country,
familiar with the people, and incapable of misrepresenting what they
saw. Americans, Germans-I will note Germans very markedly-and English
observers as well. These all support, with practical unanimity, the
stories given by those victims who had survived, whose records, had they
not been thus supported, might very unfairly have been judged as not
likely to be correctly or temperately given.
I believe that the story of these years is really an outrage on
civilisation without historical parallel in the world. I do not believe
that in the wildest barbarities recorded in history, including those of
the days of Tamerlane, you would be able to exceed, if you could
parallel, the accounts that are here given. And these can be, as I have
said, undoubtedly traced, not to the outrageous conduct of undisciplined
hordes, but to the deliberate plan and scheme of a Government with which
you are supposed to have been on friendly terms and in alliance for many
purposes. After all the distractions which the war has brought into the
mind of men all over the world in contemplating contemporary history, is
it conceivable that we are going to allow these facts to be forgotten;
or, if we do not allow them to be forgotten, that we are going to allow
conditions to arise again during which their repetition can be possible?
That seems to me to be a question which ought to be, and must be, asked
at once. ..
It is, of course, difficult to know how to deal with the question
and that is a matter which is not within my province or within my power
to handle in any way at all. No one contends that it is a very easy
matter to know what ought to happen next, and hardly any one contends
that we should suppress the Turk in Asia Minor proper; that is in the
peninsula west of a line running from Samsoon in the north to
Alexandretta in the south. West of that line we admit that Asia Minor is
a region under Turkish rule, and presumably it is to continue to prevail
with whatever checks or supervision are practicable. No one suggests
that they should be suppressed in this region. But east of that line the
whole conditions are entirely different. That region has never
historically belonged properly to Turkey; is not inhabited by the
Turkish races, nor are the Turks as numerous there, as are other races.
………
It has been definitely promised that whatever flag it is which flies
over these regions in the future the actual control must never again be
in Turkish hands. I will not trouble your Lordships with quotations but
I will give two from the Prime Minister himself. Speaking in December
20, 1917, in the House of Commons the Prime Minister said this- What
will happen to Mesopotamia must be left to the Peace Congress when it
meets; but there is one thing that will never happen; it will never be
restored to the blasting tyranny of the Turk. At best he was a trustee
of this far famed land on behalf of Ah! what a trustee! He has been
false to his trust, and his trusteeship must be given over to more
competent and more equitable hands chosen by the Congress which will
settle the affairs of the world. That same observation applies to
Armenia, the land soaked with blood of innocents massacred by the people
who were bound to protect them. Speaking a little later the Prime
Minister said- Outside Europe we believe the same principles should be
applied. While we do not challenge the maintenance of the Turkish Empire
in the home lands of the Turkish race with its capital at
Consantinople-the passage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea
being internationalised and neutralised-Arabia, Armenia, Mesopotamia,
Syria, and Palestine are, in our judgment, entitled to a recognition of
their separate national conditions. What the exact form of that
recognition in each particular case should be need not be here
discussed, beyond stating that it would be impossible to restore to
their former sovereignty the territories to which I have just referred.
I ask now, What are we to understand as to their fulfilment? I do not
believe I appeal to an unsympathetic tribunal. I apologise for having
detained your Lordships so long but the point raised in the question had
to be made clear; it is one which deserves attention and must not pass
from the memory of civilised people. It is a matter of vital import to
the honour of humanity and the good faith and wellbeing of the world."
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (EARL CURZON OF
KEDLESTON) (for the government)
My Lords, I do not want to stand between the House and my noble
friend Lord Bryce, but, I have an engagement which compels me to go away
presently. No one will dispute the extreme gravity or the poignant
tragedy of many of the incidents which the moat rev. Primate has placed
before us. He has recapitulated from the Blue-book many of the most
terrible incidents in the long career of bloodshed, atrocity, and crime
which has disfigured what I hope will be the dying days of the Turkish
Empire in those parts of Asia to which he had alluded. . …..
… as regards the Assyrians who lived before and who are willing to
live again in the areas which belong to the old Turkish Empire, either
to place them in an enclave adjacent to the territories under our
control, so that they may be under our wing and within easy reach of our
protection, or, if we provide a home for them in their former home lands
or further afield among the Kurdish peoples, to try to make such
arrangements for them as may secure their safe and decent existence.
The most Rev. Primate alluded to the different declarations that
have been made at various times since we went into the country by
responsible spokesmen of His Majesty’s Government. He quoted in
particular two declarations made in the course of last year or the year
before by the Prime Minister. By those declarations we stand. They have
never been departed from there. They do not express the sentiments, the
aspirations, or the intentions of ourselves alone. They are shared by
all our Allies. And, my Lords I hope that many months-I may even go
further and say that I hope that many weeks-will not now elapse before
the Allied Powers in Conference are able seriously to come to a solution
of the Turkish problem, too long delayed already, and bring it to a
satisfactory conclusion.
VISCOUNT BRYCE
….. They (the Armenian refugees) cannot return until something is done
to check the Turkish bands which are still ravishing the country. There
are, I am informed, no regular Turkish forces now in Armenia proper,
that is to say, in Armenia to the east of the Taurus Mountains, nor in
Cilicia, but there are wandering bands-the remnants of the former
Turkish forces-and all the bad characters who always come to front where
a country is in complete disorder, and these are so numerous and so well
armed that it would be unsafe for the refugees at present to return.
I believe that by that means, by means of the exercise of diplomatic
pressure, by sending a force into the country, which need not be a very
large force, to see that these bands are suppressed, it will be possible
to enable the refugees to return in safety.
That brings me to say a word about the Treaty itself. The first
condition of any Treaty to be made with the Turks is that they shall
entirely evacuate what is known as Armenia. I share the view which was
expressed by the most rev. Primate that there is no reason why a Turkish
Sultan should not continue to reign in those parts of Asia Minor where
there is a majority of the Muslim population. The Muslim population is
in the large majority along the north coast of Asia Minor, and through
most parts of the central plateau, and there a Sultan may remain, and if
anybody likes-if he can obtain recognition from the Mahomedan world as
Caliph-he may remain as Caliph also. But what I believe the public of
this country will insist upon, and in fact, what public opinion must
insist upon when it knows the facts and realises those facts upon which
the most rev. Primate dwelt-the immense scale and the circumstances of
horror which attended these massacres and which have shown once again
how utterly unfit the Turk is to exercise powers over persons of a
different faith and race-is that there shall be no more Turkish rule in
Armenia nor in those other regions, Chaldæan and Assyrian, in which
the massacres have been perpetrated.
Some other declarations-those made by the present Prime Minister-have
been referred to by the most rev. Primate. I could if it were necessary
give other declarations-declarations made by Mr. Balfour on behalf of
the Government, declarations made by Lord Robert Cecil on behalf of the
Government., declarations made by M. Clemenceau who also pledged France
to secure liberation of the Armenians. And therefore I am very glad to
know that the noble Earl, in the words which he spoke just now, declared
that His Majesty’s Government-and he said he spoke for the Allies
also-stand by those declarations, and intend to fulfil them. I am sure
the House will note with satisfaction that declaration, and will feel
sure that His Majesty’s Government will carry it out. But I want to
press this point upon it, that that must be taken to mean the regions in
which the Muslim population is not in a large majority, such as the
centre of Asia Minor, and that the declaration must be taken to include
all the countries to the east of the Taurus Mountains, Cilicia, and the
six vilayets of Armenia, and that it is not only for the Republic at
Erivan that independence is to be promised, but that that independence
is to belong to all the regions which historically belong to the
Armenian part of Western Asia.
I need only remind your Lordships that if you desire to have any other
view of the conduct of the Turks and the character of those massacres in
addition to that which the Blue-book presents, to which the most rev.
Primate has referred, you will find it in the book of Mr. Morgenthau,
the American Ambassador at Constantinople during the period of the
massacres. He tells us himself that he constantly went to Enver and
Talaat, who are the two chiefs of the Committee of Union and Progress
and the persons chiefly responsible for planning and carrying out the
massacres. He represented to them that the world would be outraged if
those things continued, and he tried for the same purpose to enlist the
sympathy of the German Ambassador, Wangenheim. He describes there how
Talaat and Enver did not attempt to conceal the massacres, did not deny
what their policy of extermination was. They did it all with a
deliberate purpose; they were supported by the other members of the
Committee of Union and Progress, and not a word was said amongst the
Turks against these massacres.
I.