Sehr geehrte(r)
Frau/Herr Parlamentarier,
The bill for the recognition of the alleged Armenian Genocide is to be voted on June 2, 2016 in the Bundestag. Bundestag member Hans-Christian Ströbele has stated that German historians characterize the 1915 tragic events as genocide and that parliamentarians can pass resolutions on events they consider as genocide.
You have a vote to give on June 2nd, 2016 which I hope you desire to use knowledgeably and fairly with a clear conscience, believing in what you are doing.
The bill for the recognition of the alleged Armenian Genocide is to be voted on June 2, 2016 in the Bundestag. Bundestag member Hans-Christian Ströbele has stated that German historians characterize the 1915 tragic events as genocide and that parliamentarians can pass resolutions on events they consider as genocide.
You have a vote to give on June 2nd, 2016 which I hope you desire to use knowledgeably and fairly with a clear conscience, believing in what you are doing.
It has turned into a schema in minds that “it is a known fact that 1.5 million Armenians have been made to march to the deserts of Syria and killed” since it has been repeated so many times for more than 100 years. Is this really the case?
In 1914 the Armenian population within the Ottoman Empire was perhaps slightly above 1.5 million altogether since Encyclopedia Britannica records the figure of 1.5 million in 1910. Near East Relief statistical data available in the US Archives, show that more than 817.873 Ottoman Armenians were settled in several countries after the relocation. Josef Marquart from Switzerland, estimates the number of Armenians who remained behind at 350-450.000 (Die Entstehung und Wiederherstellung der armenischen Nation, Berlin 1920, s.79). Perhaps you will find these figures rather puzzling and will want to explore the issue a little more in depth. Please spare a few minutes to have a look through the points below before you vote.
• Atatürk said: “After making allowance for the enormous exaggerations always made by those who accuse their enemies, the transfer of Armenians reduces itself to this – The Armenian Dashnak Committee, then in the service of the Tsar, had caused the Armenian population behind our troops to revolt when the Russian Army began its great 1915 offensive against us. “Obliged to retreat before the superior numbers and material of the enemy, we found ourselves constantly between two fires. Our convoys of supplies and wounded were pitilessly massacred, roads and bridges destroyed behind us and terror reigned the Turkish country-side. The bands, which committed these crimes and which included in their ranks Armenians able to bear arms, were supplied with arms, munitions and provisions in Armenian villages where, thanks to the immunities accorded in the capitulation’s, certain foreign powers had succeeded during peacetime in establishing enormous stocks for this purpose” (Public Ledger, March 27, 1921).
• Armenian hero Armen Garo (ei. Karekin Pastermajian, Ottoman Member of Parliament)’s several booklets available in the Internet Archive can be regarded confessions which affirm what Atatürk said. The demand for independence by 20 % at the expense of 80 % was possible at that time as the Ottoman Empire was expected to collapse any moment and as Greece had got over Thessaloniki, birth place of Atatürk, at such a ratio with the support of Europe. (https://archive.org/search.php?query=armen%20garo)
• Did you
know that the recordings of 1915 in Armenian Documents, a documentary produced
in Turkey and sent to Germany to be screened have been recently confiscated by
the German customs officials and thus censored in your country? Serkan Koç, The
Director of the film is still fighting with this intervention to freedom of
expression and thought. If “an honest appraisal of history is the most
important basis for reconciliation” as stated in the draft bill shouldn’t
Germany allow all views to be expressed?
• Genocide is an international crime which can be determined by an international criminal court on the basis of the prescribed legal criteria. Even ECHR did not attempt “to determine whether the massacres and mass deportations suffered by the Armenian people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 onwards could be characterised as genocide within the meaning of that term under international law; unlike the international criminal courts [saying that], it had no authority to make legally binding pronouncements on this point.” (ECHR 325 (2015) 15.10.2015) It is worthwhile to remember that ECHR decisions are binding. Is it appropriate for a parliamentarian whose duty is to make law using a legal term informally meaning any mass killing and take arbitrary decisions?
• With the above mentioned Final Decision, the ECHR Grand Chamber also indicated that Armenian case is quite different from the Holocaust which is a legally proven case of genocide.
• Numerous times the UN declined to accept a report that characterized the Armenian case as genocide and the UN spokespersons reiterated that the UN does not consider the case as genocide. (http://www.mfa.gov.tr/statement-by-farhan-haq_-n-october-5_-2000_.en.mfa)
• The British convened the Malta Tribunal to try Ottoman officials for crimes against Armenians in 1919. All of the accused were acquitted. (Gürkan, U.(2015). The Malta Tribunals, RAS, 31, ss.181-204. http://avim.org.tr/images/uploads/Yayin/ras-31.pdf)
• Over 2.5 million Muslims died during the same period from similar causes. Have you ever heard of a a genocide where more perpetrators die than victims? British scholar Jeremy Salt says "What is never mentioned in the standard narrative is that probably between two and 2.5 million Ottoman Muslim civilians died in this war from the same range of causes. They are the ghosts never talked about because the news correspondents, consuls and missionaries were only interested in the suffering of Christians. The Muslims have disappeared from history as if they never existed" (Salt, J. (2013). Armenians and Syria 1915 and 2013. http://avim.org.tr/Blog/ARMENIANS-AND-SYRIA-1915-AND-2013-1).
• Another scholar, Sachar says, “All through those years of war no nation's, not even the Armenians' blood was shed as much as Turks.” (Sachar, Howard Morley. The Emergence of the Middle East, 1914-1924. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969. p. 453)
• Erickson, who has evaluated the events from a military point of view stressed that "the Ottoman reaction was escalatory and responsive rather than premeditated and pre-planned. In this context the Ottoman relocation decision becomes more understandable as a military solution to a military problem. While political and ideological imperatives perhaps drove the decision equally, if not harder, these do not negate the fact that the Armenians were a great military danger." (Erickson, Edward J. Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915. War In History 2008 15: 141. http://wih.sagepub.com/content/15/2/141.)
• The allegers assert that the genocide was committed through Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa, the Ottoman secret service. Philip Stoddard and Gwynne Dyer’s works have shown irrelevance of this assertion (Lewy, G. Revisiting the Armenian Genocide. Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2005, pp. 3-12. http://www.meforum.org/748/revisiting-the-armenian-genocide)
• The French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud says “Regarding the 1915 tragic events as a genocide is an opinion but not a fact”. (US cable channel MSNBC, May 2015. (https://www.facebook.com/factcheckarmenia/videos/793189514063566/)
• Genocide is an international crime which can be determined by an international criminal court on the basis of the prescribed legal criteria. Even ECHR did not attempt “to determine whether the massacres and mass deportations suffered by the Armenian people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 onwards could be characterised as genocide within the meaning of that term under international law; unlike the international criminal courts [saying that], it had no authority to make legally binding pronouncements on this point.” (ECHR 325 (2015) 15.10.2015) It is worthwhile to remember that ECHR decisions are binding. Is it appropriate for a parliamentarian whose duty is to make law using a legal term informally meaning any mass killing and take arbitrary decisions?
• With the above mentioned Final Decision, the ECHR Grand Chamber also indicated that Armenian case is quite different from the Holocaust which is a legally proven case of genocide.
• Numerous times the UN declined to accept a report that characterized the Armenian case as genocide and the UN spokespersons reiterated that the UN does not consider the case as genocide. (http://www.mfa.gov.tr/statement-by-farhan-haq_-n-october-5_-2000_.en.mfa)
• The British convened the Malta Tribunal to try Ottoman officials for crimes against Armenians in 1919. All of the accused were acquitted. (Gürkan, U.(2015). The Malta Tribunals, RAS, 31, ss.181-204. http://avim.org.tr/images/uploads/Yayin/ras-31.pdf)
• Over 2.5 million Muslims died during the same period from similar causes. Have you ever heard of a a genocide where more perpetrators die than victims? British scholar Jeremy Salt says "What is never mentioned in the standard narrative is that probably between two and 2.5 million Ottoman Muslim civilians died in this war from the same range of causes. They are the ghosts never talked about because the news correspondents, consuls and missionaries were only interested in the suffering of Christians. The Muslims have disappeared from history as if they never existed" (Salt, J. (2013). Armenians and Syria 1915 and 2013. http://avim.org.tr/Blog/ARMENIANS-AND-SYRIA-1915-AND-2013-1).
• Another scholar, Sachar says, “All through those years of war no nation's, not even the Armenians' blood was shed as much as Turks.” (Sachar, Howard Morley. The Emergence of the Middle East, 1914-1924. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969. p. 453)
• Erickson, who has evaluated the events from a military point of view stressed that "the Ottoman reaction was escalatory and responsive rather than premeditated and pre-planned. In this context the Ottoman relocation decision becomes more understandable as a military solution to a military problem. While political and ideological imperatives perhaps drove the decision equally, if not harder, these do not negate the fact that the Armenians were a great military danger." (Erickson, Edward J. Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915. War In History 2008 15: 141. http://wih.sagepub.com/content/15/2/141.)
• The allegers assert that the genocide was committed through Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa, the Ottoman secret service. Philip Stoddard and Gwynne Dyer’s works have shown irrelevance of this assertion (Lewy, G. Revisiting the Armenian Genocide. Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2005, pp. 3-12. http://www.meforum.org/748/revisiting-the-armenian-genocide)
• The French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud says “Regarding the 1915 tragic events as a genocide is an opinion but not a fact”. (US cable channel MSNBC, May 2015. (https://www.facebook.com/factcheckarmenia/videos/793189514063566/)
Respecting the Armenian sufferings caused by the displacement, which was actually from one province of the Empire to the other, not abroad, is a humanitarian issue. Turkish authorities have several times expressed that they are sorry for what civilians have been through during the war, though nobody has expressed sympathy with our sufferings and what we have been through yet. My grandaunt was raped and killed together with her husband and baby son by Armenian Tashnaksuityun chetes, being stabbed in bed at a night raid. I feel sorry for their sufferings and expect Armenians and their supporters to feel sorry for our sufferings equally.
No country can be expected to admit having committed a very serious crime without any evidence. This is a legal issue, not political.
I have been dealing with
this topic over the last five years as an independent researcher and please do
not hesitate to ask if you have any questions.
I hope you join the debate and vote judging the issue evenhandedly.
Respectfully yours,
Selma Aslan
NB. Please feel free to forward this message if you find it useful. Further info: http://armenianholocaustmystory.blogspot.com.tr/
I hope you join the debate and vote judging the issue evenhandedly.
Respectfully yours,
Selma Aslan
NB. Please feel free to forward this message if you find it useful. Further info: http://armenianholocaustmystory.blogspot.com.tr/
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