A desperate plea for recognition of the Armenian genocide

Article by Francine Nicholas. Edited by Tom Hartley. Additional Research by Jack Barnes and Francine Nicholas.

April 24th marks the 97th anniversary of the Armenian genocide that was committed under the Ottoman Empire. Confirming the truth about the Armenian genocide remains of historical and international significance, not only because of the crimes committed against humanity, but because of the Republic of Turkeys persistence in denying its occurrence. The dispute involves the numbers that were killed, and to whether the killings were orchestrated, the Turkish government maintains there was no systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenians. Though they do admit Armenians were killed under the Ottoman Empire, they speak of the Muslim Turks who too were killed, urging the number of Armenians killed was nowhere near as the United Nations speculates. It is no wonder that the Armenian genocide remains such a sensitive global issue, to be a victim of the genocide or a descendent of one, and have your pleas of recognition for the genocide against your people ignored, it’s arguably as big of a crime to deny the Holocaust. 

In 1915 the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was reported at two million, but by 1923 the ethnic group had been practically eradicated. The status of the Armenians as one of second class citizens can be traced back to the rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid in the 1890s. In this era they were obliged to pay discriminatory taxes, denied basic rights such as participation in government, protection of their property and even their lives. As expected in any time of turmoil, countries look for a scapegoat to blame their problems. For the Turks, it was the Armenians. Once a powerful empire in the seventeenth century, the Ottoman Empire was in critical decline by the nineteenth century, due to the loss of almost all its territories in Europe and Asia. Since the Armenian minority continued to prosper despite economic decline in contrast to Turks, this resulted in the intensification of ethnic tensions. Furthermore, when Armenian revolutionary movements campaigned to see their social status in the Ottoman Empire improve; these demands only resulted in further repression. The Sultan’s simple solution was to suppress them. In 1890, Hamid II created a paramilitary outfit known as the Hamidiye who were tasked to “deal with the Armenians as they wished.” The years of 1894-96 in the Ottoman Empire became known as the Hamidian massacres, which saw the loss of 300,000 Armenian lives. 

On 24th July, 1908, the Armenians saw a glimpse of hope in an equal future with a coup d’état by the Young Turk Revolution. But with the Young Turks and their Committee of Union and Progress’ (CUP) ultra-nationalistic ideology advocating the formation of an exclusive Turkish state, this dream would not be made apparent. During the WWI, the Ottoman Empire under this new government formed part of the Triple Alliance. They would use international warfare as a smoke screen to conduct an operation of massacres against the Armenian population. Commencing with the arrest and deportation of Armenian leaders and notable intellectuals on April 24 1915, this was the start of things to come. The Ottoman authorities through propaganda presented the Armenians living in the capital as a threat to their security; using the Armenian volunteers to the Russian army as an explicit example of this. In reality, their primary purpose was to create a new Pan-Turanian empire, and to eradicate those in their way of achieving this. 

Masqueraded as a resettlement program, the Armenian population was ordered to deport from their homes, throughout 1915. The Ottoman parliament passed several laws of Expropriation and Confiscation, stating that all property, land, livestock and homes were to be taken from the Armenians and confiscated by the authorities. Stripping them from their entire livelihood, the genocidal intent of the deportations was soon made apparent. These deportation walks were intended to be death marches in their entirety. Absolutely no provisions were made for the feeding or hydrating the deported population. This was an obvious attempt to quicken the process of death. For those who did reach northern Syria, survival was not achieved but further turmoil and death. The majority were taken to a number of concentration camps, where they were sent to slowly die or work under the desert sun till death. Those not deported did not get a lucky escape but died through systematic mass burnings, drowning and the use of poison and drug overdoses. A reason why there was little resistance was because the Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army had been previously disarmed and either immediately executed, or worked to death in labour camps. In this way, the Ottoman Empire successfully eliminated any possible threat in a mere stroke.

The devastating outcome of the war was intensely frustrating for Armenians for more reasons than one. The majority of the CUP who were arrested for their crimes, managed to flee abroad, although Talaat Pasha the Minister of Interior Affairs who issued the Tehcir Law legalising the mass deportation of Armenians, was killed in Berlin in 1921. Most of those implicated in war crimes escaped justice, and joined the new Nationalist Turkish movement. In this manner they continued the process of eradicating the Armenians through further military campaigns; this was seen against the Russian Armenians in 1920 and against the Greek army in Anatolia where the last Armenian community remained intact in 1922. 

It is estimated that up to 1.5 million were killed overall under the Ottoman Empire and Turkish military organisations, though Turkey maintains the total to be no more than 300,000. The objective of reducing these figures is to portray them as understandable actions given the bloody circumstances of war. The events were described sufficiently by Henry Morgenthau, the US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire: “when the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.” Despite this, Turkey soon received international recognition when they were made a republic in 1923, and Armenian victims were left feeling like a mere side effect of war. 

Though Armenians today would not blame the descendants of the Ottoman Empire for such atrocities, the affirmation for the truth has not been acknowledged and ties between the two nations continue to deteriorate. The European Union has said Turkish acceptance of the Armenian genocide is not a condition for Turkey’s entry into the bloc. Not wanting to antagonise Turkey, they inevitably neglected and outraged Armenians. Additionally, in March 2010, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Washington, after a US congressional committee narrowly approved a resolution labelling the killings as ‘genocide’. Barack Obama’s administration later declared its objections to the resolution and called for it not to be “acted upon” by Congress. This indicates just how delicate an issue the Armenian genocide is since there is no way to appease both nations. It will undoubtedly remain a concern between the two countries. On one hand Turkey makes a constant effort to suppress any mentioning of the genocide, since it causes harm to its international status, on the other a plea by Armenians to put a face to the Armenian genocide, by means of global recognition. These two views have challenged one another, both failing to convince the other of a single aspect. 

• The Young Turks were a Turkish Nationalist Reform party officially known as the Committee of Union and Progress. They favoured a reform of the absolute monarchy that ruled the Ottoman Empire.

• They seized power in 1913, and were headed by a ‘dictatorial’ triumvirate, led by Mehmed Talaat, Enver Pasha and Djemal Pasha. 

• After Turkish defeat in WWI, the CUP resigned.

• For more photographs documenting the Armenian Genocide visit https://armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Armenian_Genocide_Photos. Please be aware some of these photographs are of a disturbing nature.

← Back to Volume 3

← Back to Issue 6