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Armenian genocide denial

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File:Turkish denial small.jpg
Turkish Denial: 'To have genocide denied is to die twice' — An advertisement for the Armenian Genocide Commemoration Holiday on 24th April, 2006 posted in The Times newspaper.

Denial of the Armenian Genocide is the assertion that the Armenian Genocide did not occur. At present, the Republic of Turkey does not accept that the deaths of Armenians during the "evacuation" or "deportation" (Turkey uses the word "relocation") are the results of an intention from Ottoman authorities (or those in charge during the war) to eliminate in whole or in part the Armenian people indiscriminately.

In March 2005, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan invited Turkish, Armenian and international historians to form a Commission to establish the events of 1915. In April 2005 Armenian president Robert Kocharyan responded to Turkish Prime Minister's offer by sending a letter to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and in the letter telling "suggestion to address the past cannot be effective if it deflects from addressing the present and the future. In order to engage in a useful dialog, we need to create the appropriate and conducive political environment. It is the responsibility of governments to develop bilateral relations and we do not have the right to delegate that responsibility to historians. That is why we have proposed and propose again that, without pre-conditions, we establish normal relations between our two countries.” In that context, President Kocharian said, “an intergovernmental commission can meet to discuss any and all outstanding issues between our two nations, with the aim of resolving them and coming to an understanding.” The letter sent by President Kocharian to Prime Minister Erdogan in April 2005 remains ignored."[1]

The position of Turkish authorities

File:Women and children killed by armenians in Kars.jpg
A photo from a Turkish military web site which is used as evidence for the Turkish victims

Some sympathetic to the Turkish official position note that Turkish governments have been very slow in answering to the genocide charges, even though nearly a century has passed since the events.[2] In 1975 Turkish historian and biographer Sevket Sureyya Aydemir summarized the reasons for this delay. He said, "The best course, I believe, is not to dwell on this subject and allow both sides to forget (calm) this part of history." This view was shared by the foreign ministry of Turkey at the time. Zeki Kuneralp, a former Turkish ambassador, had a different explanation, according to him "The liabilities of not publishing the historical documents outweigh the advantages."[3]

With Kamuran Gurun for the first time a controversial period of the Ottoman Empire began to be questioned by the Republic of Turkey. Other Turkish institutions followed Kamuran Gurun. The thesis brought by Armenian and foreign historians were then answered by analyzing the casualties of deportations, and the alleged casualties of inter-ethnic fighting, etc. Initial studies were basically on aggregated data issues, through classifications and categorizations. These discussions have been moved to issues such as why the Armenian resistance force failed to support a sustainable Armenian state[4] and Ottoman military problems under insurgency[5]. Most of these activities aim to find out and analyze the relationships of the controversial issues surrounding Ottoman state of the time; intending to have a better understanding of "why the choices of the Ottoman system had been shaped as they were". These questions aim to bring the complexity of Ottoman history and dynamics of a blacked-out period beyond the current available arguments to surface so that the correct lessons in prevention of these activities can be taken.

Turkey often counters accusations of genocide by mentioning the plight of Ottoman Muslims throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. According to the historian Mark Mazower, Turkey resents the fact that the West is ignorant of the fate of millions of Muslims expelled from the Balkans and Russia, and would consider any apology towards Armenians as a confirmation of the anti-Turkish sentiment held by Western powers for centuries. Mazower recognizes a genocide of the Armenians, but he notes "Even today, no connection is made between the genocide of the Armenians and Muslim civilian losses: the millions of Muslims expelled from the Balkans and the Russian Empire through the long 19th century remain part of Europe's own forgotten past. Indeed, the official Turkish response is invariably to remind critics of this fact — an unconvincing justification for genocide, to be sure, but an expression of underlying resentment."[6]

Political arguments

The Turkish authorities hold the position that the deaths were the result of the turmoil of World War I and that the Ottoman Empire was fighting against Russia, who backed the Armenian volunteer units. The authorities assert that claims of genocide are based on Armenian unrest, or ethnic-religious conflicts, which are not established historical facts. Furthermore, they contend that there was a political movement towards creating a "Republic of Armenia". The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkanization process were in the same period, and may obfuscate the actual events.

The Turkish authorities maintain the position that the Ottoman Empire did not exercise the degree of control which the opposing parties claim. Turkey accepts that there were Armenian deaths as a result of Ottoman decisions, but states that the responsible Ottoman bureaucrats and military personnel were tried.

The Turkish authorities claim that the forced migrations by themselves cannot be classified as acts of genocide by the state. They note that in 1915 there was only one railway that connects west-east and that the path of what it considers relocation was not a conspiracy to exterminate Armenians. Turkish authorities strongly reject claims that the locations of the camps which are mentioned in some sources are a result of a conspiracy to bury Armenians in deserts. Dayr az-Zawr is a district along the Euphrates and one of the unique places far away from any military activity; thus, Dayr az-Zawr's selection as a burying site in a deserted location is rejected. They attribute the graves in these areas to difficulties of traveling under very hard conditions. The conditions of these camps reflected the condition of the Ottoman Empire. The Empire was facing the Gallipoli landings in the west, and the Caucasus Campaign in the east. Turkish authorities note that the war brought the end of the Empire financially and economically.

The Turkish authorities seek both historical and political reconciliation with Armenia, but claim that insistence on the term genocide is counterproductive.

Citations

As a scholarly study area, the field is highly divided, as the camps on both sides of this issue approach it very strongly.

  • Turkish authorities constantly brought arguments related with single source (Ottoman or a Western) issues. They point out that without doing a triangulation, even if the facts were reported correctly, the conclusions drawn can be false. It is also possible to look at secondary sources in the Ottoman Archives of the period such as budget, allocations, decisions/reasons of requests. There are also personal records such as Mehmed Talat Pasha's personal notes. They constantly point out the general attitude Sick man of Europe of the time and how it deforms perceptions. They claim the conclusions reached toward genocide are highly biased.
  • Some very "central" (most cited) sources are actively questioned on the basis that they do not include a single reference from the Ottoman Archives. Mainly occupying force's sources of the period (British, French) on the basis of their Intelligence (information gathering) issues. There are concerns that these sources may promote propaganda.
  • Reverse engineering of activities aimed to provide evidence without covering opposing reasoning, such as "Map of Genocide", which they claim contains factual problems. In this map, for the methodology behind "Centers of Massacre and Deportation" which was developed adding data from three different sources, (the data in these sources are also aggregate data), is questioned. Its use as a source of validation among Western scholars has been questioned.
  • They bring up points on arguments that there was a secret arrangement which can be traced through mismatches on orders and distributions of the forced deportations. They say without considering (or checking) periphery central transmissions on how to deal with emerging issues are actively questioned. There are many periphery central transmissions on how to deal with emerging issues, such as allocating more than 10% of the destination population and its consequences to the local economy.

Casualties

Based on studies of the Ottoman census by Justin McCarthy and on contemporary estimates, it is said that far fewer than 1.5 million Armenians lived in the relevant areas before the War. Estimates of deaths are thus lowered, ranging from 200,000 to 600,000 between 1914 and the Armistice of Mudros. In addition, it is said that these deaths are not all related to the deportations, nor should they all be attributed to the Ottoman authorities.

Yusuf Halacoglu, President the Turkish Historical Society (TTK), presented lower figures of Armenian casualties. He estimates that a total of 56,000 Armenians perished during the period due to war conditions, and less than 10 thousand were actually killed. This study is still absent from the Turkish foreign affairs publications.

Holocaust similarities

Although the Nazis and the Young Turks both used forced deportations to expose their minority populations to privations, hunger, disease, and ultimate death, Turkish authorities deny similarities with the Holocaust.

  • Unlike the Armenians, the Jewish population of Germany and Europe did not agitate for separation. Armenian scholars reply that Holocaust deniers make similar false claims, namely the Jews agitated to destroy Germany by allying with the Soviet Union to bring Bolshevism into Germany.
  • Arguments disputing the similarities to the Holocaust are as follows: (a) there is no record of (neither from origination archives nor from destination archives in Syria) an effort to develop a systematic process and efficient means of killing, (b) there are no lists or other methods for tracing the Armenian population to assemble and kill as many people as possible, (c) there was no resource allocation to exterminate Armenians (biological, chemical warefare allocations), and the use of morphine as a mass extermination agent is not accepted; in fact, there was a constant increase in food and support expenses and these efforts continued after the end of deportations, (d) there is no record of Armenians in forced deportations being treated as prisoners, (e) the claims regarding prisoners apply only to the leaders of the Armenian militia, but did not extend to ethnic profiling; the size of the security force needed to develop these claims was beyond the power of the Ottoman Empire during 1915, (f) there is no record of prisons designed or built to match the claims of a Holocaust, (g) there were no public speeches organized by the central government targeting Armenians.
  • Similar to the Jews of Europe, the Armenians were a merchant-class society who often lived in communities separate from the majority populace. Also similar to the European Jews, the Armenians were of a minority religion in the region, had an orthodox religious and social structure, and were unwilling to fully assimilate to national culture. In both instances, this caused the minority to often be viewed as more loyal to each other than to the nations in which they lived, fueling discrimination. Ottoman Armenians and European Jews both occasionally endured pogroms, violent urban mob attacks, prior to full-scale genocide attempts.

Law

Some countries, including Argentina and Uruguay have adopted laws that punish genocide deniers in their countries. More recently, France has passed a bill which if approved by the Senate and president, will make Armenian Genocide denial a crime.

References

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ The Ottoman Armenians: Victims of Great Power Diplomacy (Book Review). Mango, Andrew. Asian Affairs, Jun88, Vol. 19 Issue 2.
  3. ^ Cited by Pierre Caraman in L'ouverture des archives d'Istanbul in Nouvel Observateur, January-February (1989) p. 145
  4. ^ Salahi Ransdam, The Ottoman Armenians: Victims of great power diplomacy 1987.
  5. ^ Erickson, Edward J. Bayonets on Musa Dagh: Ottoman Counterinsurgency Operations — 1915 in the Journal of Strategic Studies Vol. 28 Issue 3. (June 2005)
  6. ^ London Review of Books, vol.23, no. 3
  7. ^ Toynbee characterised the Armenian massacres as genocide in much later works including Acquaintances (1967) and Experiences (1969). See Hans-Lukas Kieser's review of Halacoglu's work.

Ottoman Armenian archives

http://www.devletarsivleri.gov.tr/kitap/

See also

External links

Websites supporting the genocide theses

Media

Websites opposing the genocide theses

Media

Independent studies

Mutual Perceptions Research (Armenia/Turkey) (*.doc file) "The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) and the Armenian Sociological Association (HASA) have organized a Mutual Perceptions Research Project. Each group is carrying out sociological research to identify key issues of cultural understanding between the neighboring countries, including the perception of Turks by Armenians and of Armenians by Turks. The study focuses on the perceptions of the majority populations in each country. The combined results will constitute study findings. Representatives from each team met in Yerevan and fieldwork was undertaken in both countries. The results of the research were presented at an international seminar jointly organized by TESEV and HASA in Tbilisi, Georgia."
Full report (*.pdf file) Armenian and Turkish versions of the report are also available on the above mentioned website.
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