Armenian Genocide

"A whole race Genocide,
Taken away all of our pride,
A whole race Genocide,
Taken away, Watch Them all fall down."

Genocide: the deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group. The crime against humanity, that is genocide, has plagued the world for thousands of years. Although there have been many genocide's since the beginning of time, the word "genocide" was first used in 1944. Polish Jewish scholar Rachael Lampkin coined the term first. The term genocide derives from the Latin (genos=race, cide=killing) and means literally the killing or murder of an entire tribe or people.

Wouldn?t it be scary if someone suddenly decided that you should disappear because he thinks you do not have the right to live because of your race or religion? Scary yes, but definitely possible. A genocide is certainly not uncommon to anyone living in this not so perfect world, full of violence, hatred and discrimination. Throughout the decades, genocide has taken place in more than one occasion, causing wars, slaughters and mass destruction of cities and towns. If you were to overhear the words "extermination of about 50% of a population" in a conversation you would probably think that they were talking about "the" holocaust committed by the Nazi's during World War II. Unfortunately not too many people are aware of the fact that the first genocide in the 20th century occurred in 1915. The Ottoman Empire, which now is known as Turkey, killed over 1.5 million Armenian's in an attempt to destroy every trace of the Armenian civilization (they almost did).

An area known as Historic Armenia lies right in the middle of what is now modern day Turkey. This is where the Armenian's ancestors began one of the first civilizations thousands of years ago. Another fact that not too many people know of is that Armenia was the first country ever to officially declare Christianity as their main religion (20 years before St. Constantine the Great in Rome). When the Ottoman Empire took control of Turkey, they tried to assimilate the Armenians by forbidding them to speak their native language in some places and imposing an extortionary tax on them. They were sometimes called gavurs, which means less than human. They were, however, allowed to attend their own churches (The Armenian Apostolic Church). In spite of the oppression that they faced they were able to adapt to Western capitalism faster than their Muslim neighbors. More and more the Armenians became the manufacturers, doctors, and teachers in Turkey. They had more children in schools than before and their overall status in society was beginning to rise. By the late 19th century, they began to understand the concept of human rights. That is, people are people and one person should not be treated better or worse than another because of their race, color, or religion. It was about that time, in 1891, that Sultan Abul-Hamid created the Hamidiye. The Hamidiye were groups of Kurds armed by the government. Their official duty was to protect the Russian border, but they spent most of their time plundering and looting Armenian villages instead.

The Armenians created revolutionary groups called fedayees in response to this abuse. In 1894, Armenians in Sassun refused to continue paying the extortionary tax to the Kurds. So Abdul-Hamid ordered Turkish along with Kurdish soldiers to go over to Sassun and to put an end to the insubordinate uprising. The death toll has been estimated at as low as 900 and as high as 60,000 Armenians. Between 1894 and 1896 about 200,000 Armenians were slaughtered. The primary goal of these massacres was not for extermination however, but rather to teach the Armenians that they had no choice but to accept their unequal status.

Of course Armenians didn't like the cruel and unjust rule of Abdul-Hamid, but surprisingly some of the Muslim Turks didn't like him either. In 1908 Abdul- Hamid was overthrown by The Young Turks (A.K.A. Committee of Union and Progress) a rising group of liberals who were dissatisfied with Abdul-Hamid's political repression. The new government brought with it new hope for both Turks and Armenians. It was this hope that may have led the Turks to adapt the philosophy of a homogeneous (of one race) nation. The Idea was to create an empire that would unite Turks from the Mediterranean coast to central Asia. This would exclude all non-Muslim minorities including the Armenians In 1913 the triumverant of Enver Pasha (minister of war) Jalaat (minister of Internal Affairs) and Jemal (minister of the navy) came into power under the homogeneous nation ideality. That same year ex-Sultan Abdul-Hamid attempted to regain power through a short-lived counterrevolution. It was during this time that more than 20,000 Armenians were killed again.

The First World War began in August of 1914. By 1915, the Turkish government had decided that they wanted to get rid of the Armenians once and for all. They had constructed a 4-step plan that would mean the end for 1,500,000 Armenians in Turkey: 1. Destroy all men physically capable of fighting: 2. Confiscate all weapons which could be used to revolt: 3. Kill the political leaders, religious leaders, the educated, and anybody else that was capable of leading: 4. "Deport" the remaining Armenians. Early 1915 the Armenians that had been drafted and were serving in the Ottoman army were stripped of their arms (guns not limbs) and placed in "labor battalions" were they would build roads and carry supplies. They were poorly fed and clothed and most died from starvation. Those that did not were taken out by the hundreds, made to dig their own graves, and then shot. Mean while, in the Armenian communities, no one knew that anything was wrong because of the poor communication and the general chaos of the war. The Turkish government then announced that they were in need of guns for the war, and that they would take them from the Armenians. In some places Armenians were given quotas; they had to produce so many guns or they would be prosecuted (tortured and killed). It was not uncommon for Armenians to have to buy guns from their Turkish neighbors in order to meet these quotas. In some cases Armenian revolutionaries hid guns in their houses or buried them. Armenian political leaders were tortured until they surrendered the location of those weapons. If they did not then their families were tortured. The guns confiscated from these people were photographed and used as "evidence" (actually just propaganda to elevate the public's hatred of Armenians) of the Armenians involvement in treasonous and insubordinate activities. Leaders in Armenian communities were then asked to report to government headquarters. They never suspected that when they reached the government headquarters they would be either shot on the spot or imprisoned where they would be tortured and then killed. Turkish torture included the pulling out of nails, teeth and beards, and driving of nails through the feet and hands. Again, this was possible because of the lack of communication between Armenian communities.

On April 24, 1915 several hundred Armenian leaders from Constantinople were arrested and put in prison where they could do no harm. The only reason they were able to live was because of the many foreign offices in Constantinople. Finally, the remaining Armenians were rounded up, told they would be relocated, and then marched off to concentration camps in the desert between Jerablus and Deir ez-Zor where they would starve and thirst to death in the burning sun. On the march, often they would be denied food and water, and many were brutalized and even killed by their "guards" or by "marauders." The authorities in Trebizond, on the Black Sea coast, did vary this routine: they loaded Armenians on barges and sank them far out at sea. Their was an estimated 1.5 million Armenians that were killed between 1915 and 1923, half of the Armenian population in Turkey, and a third of the Armenian population in the world, but perhaps what's scarier than the statistic itself is the fact that very few people know it happened. If you type the word genocide into an online search engine you would probably get a couple of thousand results about the Jewish Holocaust in Germany, and only a couple about the Armenian genocide. This is way out of proportion to the actual deaths that each of theses events has accounted for: The proportion is actually less than 6 to 1. Never have these events been taught in our public schools, never have politicians addressed this issue in a serious manner, never has the media done any meaningful coverage of these tragedies, and never has Hollywood created a movie about the mass murders of these innocent people. What else could we have forgotten about the past, and what else will we forget in the future.

The Turkish government today denies that there was an Armenian genocide and claims that Armenians were only removed from the "war zone." Despite Turkish denial, there is no doubt about the Armenian Genocide. For example, German ambassador Count von Wolff-Metternich, Turkey's ally in World War I, wrote his government in 1916 saying: "The Committee [of Union and Progress] demands the annihilation of the last remnants of the Armenians and the [Ottoman] government must bow to its demands. Henry Morgenthau Sr., the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, sent a cable to the U.S. State Department in 1915: "Deportation of and excesses against peaceful Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eye witnesses [sic] it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion." Only one Turkish government, that of Damad Ferit Pasha, has ever recognized the Armenian genocide. In fact, that Turkish government held war crimes trials and condemned to death the major leaders responsible. The Permanent People's Tribunal recognized the Armenian Genocide in 1984. The European Parliament voted to recognize the Armenian Genocide in 1987. President Bush issued a news release in 1990 calling on all Americans to join with Armenians in commemorating the Armenian Genocide on April 24. But perhaps the most shocking remark was made by Adolph Hitler: "We all know how the Turks got rid of the Armenian race, it worked ! This one can work too."

All of this makes you think doesn't it ? If foreign countries were to stop the Ottoman Empire from committing this horrifying crime there's a good chance that the Holocaust and the many other mass killings of the 20th century would never happen or could have been prevented. The sad truth is that today in our so called civilized society there are still many countries including USA and Canada that do not recognize the Armenian Genocide. Most recently bill H.R. 398 was rejected by president Clinton, if accepted H.R. 398 would recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915 perpetrated by the government of Turkey. We live in hope that one day Turkey and the rest of the countries that still deny the Armenian Genocide would recognize it despite of the dirty politics involved in denying it.

"Those who forget the past are destined to repeat it . . . STOP THE P.L.U.C.K.!!!"

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please post at our board in the Armenian Genocide forum.

Written by Asped Emin
Information compiled and edited from various sources.
© 2001 The Armenian System Of A Down Site

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