Perpetuating the Genocide Myth
By Demir Delen
A Publication of the Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations
Introduction
It is a fact that approximately 700,000 Armenians were killed or died of starvation and disease during the First World War in eastern Anatolia. It is also a fact that more than 2 million Turks and Muslims were massacred by the Armenians at the turn of the century or died during the First World War in eastern Anatolia, fighting Armenians and Russians.
These were tragic events from which lessons should be learned, so that similar incidents of ultra-nationalism that result in the total uprooting and devastation of communities are not allowed to occur again. The Turkish community in Canada and the U.S, as well as the Turks in Turkey recognize the Armenian deaths and suffering during this period. What they deeply object is the propaganda and distortion of facts by Armenian activists who are misleading the public in order to further their political agenda by crying “genocide”, while ignoring the death and suffering of more than twice as many Turks and portraying a completely one-sided version of the events of more than 85 years ago.
Armenians, in their attempts to convince the world opinion about the existence of a genocide perpetrated against them during the First World War, resort to forgeries and falsifications. A few of such forgeries and falsifications frequently referred to in Armenian publications are exposed in this booklet.
The Armenian propaganda and allegations have not been countered in North America until the late 1980’s. There were no recognizable population of Turks in Canada and the United States until then. Armenian activists were unopposed for decades in their one-sided depiction of history to the North American public, who were not expected to be knowledgeable about the events of long time ago in a far away country. Now that the Canadian and U.S. citizens are becoming aware of the Armenian massacres of the Turkish and Muslim population, the Armenian activists are changing tactics and talking about things like “psychology of genocide denial and deniers” or “rewriting of history”, in order to discredit anyone who opposes their propaganda.
It is absurd for Armenian spokespeople to talk about “genocide deniers” when they completely ignore the 2 million Turkish deaths in the same period and in the same geographical area. No Armenian publication, propaganda literature, conference or seminar ever mentions the Armenian massacres of the Turkish and Muslim population by the armed revolutionary committees at the beginning of the 20th century. Otherwise, they would not be able to claim a so-called Armenian genocide. In the kind of genocide Armenians claim, the alleged perpetrators ended up having more dead than the victims!
The history of the Ottoman empire -“the sick man of Europe”- during the First World War, when it was defending its own lands at three separate fronts against the allied forces and its dismal economic condition are well documented. The existence of Armenian terrorist organizations and revolutionary committees (Armenakan, Hunchak Dashnaktsutiun, etc.) since late 19th century and their armed rebellions resulting in the massacres of the Turkish population in the eastern provinces, as well as the Armenian cooperation with the Russians whom the Ottomans were fighting against, are also well documented by historians.
It is ironic that Armenians accuse anyone who opposes their allegations of a so-called genocide by exposing the historical facts, as “rewriting history”. Yet Armenians are rewriting history more than 80 years later, in Parliaments of western countries and in the Legislatures of several states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada where they have a considerable population, by lobbying, donating to election campaigns and influencing politicians.
Comparison of Armenian Claims with the Jewish Holocaust
Armenians want to cash in on the worldwide sentiment regarding Jewish Holocaust by claiming that they were the ones who were subjected to the first genocide of the 20th century and that if the world paid more attention to their suffering, there would not have been a Holocaust. In publications and conferences they frequently attempt to draw a parallel with the Jewish Holocaust, hoping that public reaction to the terrible suffering of the Jews would also associate it with the Armenians.
For anyone who is familiar with the European and Ottoman history of the 20th century, such comparisons are absurd and an insult to the Jews. The following are some facts to consider:
Jews who were law-abiding citizens and innocent civilians, were subjected to the Holocaust by systematic actions and policies of the Nazi government during peace time. Jews posed no threat to the State.
Armenians had formed several revolutionary committees who were attacking Ottoman villages and massacring Turks, as well as actively assisting the Russians with whom the Ottoman Empire was at war. The only government policy was to relocate the Armenians in the eastern provinces where they were close to the Russians.
Nazis had superior economic and military resources and power which they used towards eradicating the Jews in the lands they occupied in Europe.
Ottomans were in a state of decline both economically and militarily and were so frail as to be referred to as “the sick man of Europe”. In 1914 and 1915, they were defending their own lands in the south, against the British in the middle east; in the west, against the Allied Forces at the Dardanelles and Gallipoli and in the east, against the Russians whom the Armenians were siding with.
No one was punished by Nazis for inhuman treatment of the Jews.
The Ottoman administration executed 62 persons for inhuman treatment of Armenians during the relocations.
After the First World War the Ottoman capital was under Allied occupation and all State archives were under the control of the British Authorities in Istanbul. As a result of constant propaganda and accusations by Armenian agitators, the British finally decided to transport more than 140 Ottoman high officials, officers and cabinet members to Malta for a trial, almost like an anticipation of the Nuremberg Trials. The prisoners were held in Malta for 30 months while the British, French and the Americans searched feverishly for evidence. If there were any credible witness or evidence regarding the alleged Armenian massacres, they could have been found easily.
No evidence could be found in Paris, Istanbul or in Anatolia to support the charge that the Ottomans had planned a mass slaughter of the Armenians. The British High Commission was unable to forward any legal evidence to London. There was nothing in the British archives that corroborated the wild accusations of the Armenians.
In America, there were already powerful Armenian lobbies. In America, certain Protestant circles had been carrying on an anti-Turkish smear campaign for decades. Surely in America there would be something to unearth, evidence to be found. On June 2, 1921, Sir Aucland Geddes, the British Ambassador in Washington, replied to Lord Curzon informing him that the State Department could not produce any evidence against the prisoners in Malta either.
The meticulous search conducted by the British for more than two years with utmost zeal to vindicate the Armenian allegations, produced nothing. The main source of information of the British High Commission in the capital city of Istanbul was a massive Armenian propaganda machinery orchestrated by the Armenian Patriarchate.
From a political standpoint, it was highly desirable for the British Government that at least some of the Turkish deportees to Malta should be brought to trial. The British Foreign Office left no stone unturned in order to prove that the so-called “Armenian massacres” actually took place. Yet all efforts and zeal in this regard ended-up with a complete failure. There was no evidence, no reliable witness, no proof and no case. On October 25, 1921 after 30 months of imprisonment, the accused Ottomans left the British colony of Malta as free men.
Now 80 years later, Armenians are attempting to rewrite history through organized campaigns to influence politicians who put forward motions of genocide recognition in different legislatures.
The term “genocide” was specifically coined after the Second World War to describe the Nazi atrocities towards Jews. Armenian opportunism tries to link the Holocaust with their claim of a so-called genocide, so that they can tap into the world sentiment, influence public opinion and obtain recognition for their propaganda.
There is no parallel between the Jewish Holocaust and the tragic events in eastern Anatolia where more than 2 million Turks and 700,000 Armenians died.
Uprising and Massacres of Turks by the Armenians:
Armenians established the Hunchak Committee in Geneva in 1887 and the Dashnak Committee at Tiflis in 1890, both of which declared their basic goal to be “the liberation from Ottoman rule of the territories of Eastern Anatolia and the Ottoman Armenians”.
According to Louise Nalbandian, a leading Armenian researcher, the Hunchak program stated the following:
“Agitation and terror were needed to elevate the spirit of the people. The party aimed at terrorizing the Ottoman Government, thus contributing toward lowering the prestige of that regime and working toward its complete disintegration. The Hunchaks wanted to annihilate the most dangerous of the Armenian and Turkish individuals who were then working for the government as well as to destroy all spies and informers. To assist them in carrying out all of these terrorist acts, the party was to organize an exclusive branch specifically devoted to performing acts of terrorism. The most opportune time to institute the general rebellion for carrying out the immediate objectives was when Turkey was engaged in war.” [Nalbandian, Louise, Armenian Revolutionary Movement, University of California Press, 1963]
K.S. Papazyan wrote as follows of the Dashnak Society:
“The purpose of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak) is to achieve political and economic freedom in Turkish Armenia by means of rebellion. Terrorism has, from the beginning, been adopted by the Dashnak Committee of the Caucasus, as a policy or a method for achieving its ends. Under the heading “means” in their program adopted in 1892, Method No. 8 is as follows: “To wage fight and to subject to terrorism the government officials, the traitors…”. Method No 11 is: “To subject the government institutions to destruction and pillage.” [Papazian, K.S., Patriotism Perverted, Boston Baker Press, 1934]
The Armenian Hunchak and Dashnak Committees organized numerous uprisings and rebellions in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, from the time they were founded in 1890 until the end of the First World War, massacring Turks and other Muslims. A chronological list of the Armenian uprisings and rebellions where countless atrocities were perpetrated against Turks, are shown on Table 1.
| Table 1: Turkish Massacres by the Armenians | |
| Date | Location |
| 1890 | Erzurum |
| 1892 | Merzifon |
| 1893 | Kayseri |
| 1895 | Zeytun |
| 1895 | Istanbul |
| 1896 | Van |
| 1896 | Istanbul, Ottoman Bank |
| 1904 | Sasun |
| 1905 | Istanbul, Yildiz |
| 1909 | Adana |
| 1915 | Van |
| 1915 | Zeytun |
| 1918 | Erzurum |
| 1918 | Erzincan |
Captain Emory Niles and Mr. Arthur Sutherland were Americans ordered by the United States Government in 1919, to investigate the situation in eastern Anatolia. Their report was to be used as the basis for granting relief aid to the Armenians by the American Committee for Near East Relief. The following is an excerpt from their report:
“In the entire region from Bitlis through Van to Bayezit we were informed that the damage and destruction had been done by the Armenians, who, after the Russians retired, remained in occupation of the country and who, when the Turkish army advanced, destroyed everything belonging to the Musulmans. Moreover, the Armenians are accused of having committed murder, rape arson and horrible atrocities of every description upon the Musulman population. At first we were most incredulous of these stories, but we finally came to believe them, since the testimony was absolutely unanimous and was corroborated by material evidence. For instance, the only quarters left at all intact in the cities of Bitlis and Van are the Armenian quarters, as was evidenced by churches and inscriptions on the houses, while the Musulman quarters were completely destroyed. Villages said to have been Armenian were still standing whereas Musulman villages were completely destroyed” [U.S. 867.00/1005].
Conclusion
In terms of civilian and military losses, the wars fought in the east between 1914 and 1920 were among the worst in history. The result of Ottoman weakness, Russian imperialism, European meddling and Armenian revolutionary nationalism was widespread devastation. After the wars, cities such as Van, Bitlis, Bayezit and Erzincan were largely rubble. Thousands of villages were destroyed. Approximately 2 million Turks and 700,000 Armenians were dead. The Armenians, who revolted to gain a nation, were left with a Soviet Republic in which they were not their own masters. The Turks, who ultimately won the wars, were left with a country in ruins. (Prof. Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile; The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821 to 1922)
In the definition of the “crime of genocide” approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1948, the essential element is that there has to be an intent of destroying a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Such an intent is clearly absent in the tragic events during the First World War in eastern Anatolia. All sources, including the most ardent advocates of the Armenian cause, accept that none of the relocation measures imposed by the Ottoman government were applied to the Armenians in the areas distant to the war fronts or to the Armenians who had settled in big cities such as Istanbul and Izmir. All civil servants of Armenian descent maintained their positions during the conflict.
The aims of the still active Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Hai Heghapokhagan Dashnaktsutiune) are well known:
- To force Turkey to accept the so-called “Armenian genocide”
- To force Turkey to apologize from the Armenians
- To force Turkey to pay retribution
- To annex eastern Turkey into Armenia.
The Dashnaktsutiun Committee (A.R.F.) is now attempting to obtain what they couldn’t obtain by armed rebellion in eastern Anatolia during the First World War, by influencing politicians and the public opinion in western countries to believe that an Armenian genocide existed.
At the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 after the First World War, Armenians were given a large part of Eastern Anatolia by the Allied Powers, to form their own independent country. However, this treaty was never put in force. It was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923 after the Turkish War of Independence, which drew the boarders of the modern Republic of Turkey. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation could not accept this fact and is trying to obtain today, through devious means, what they were promised at Sevres by the British, French, the U.S. etc.
The atrocities Armenians perpetrated against the Turks at the beginning of the 20th century and their recent acts of terrorism in the 1970’s and 1980’s, during which they murdered 42 Turkish diplomats and civil servants around the world, are now transformed into political activism using falsifications and propaganda.
As recently as in October 1999, the President of the Armenian National Committee of America, Murad Topalian, was arrested in the U.S. and charged with five different counts of terrorism and weapons related offenses. He was also known to be a member of ASALA, an Armenian terrorist organization. Together with another Armenian Terrorist Organization JCAG (Justice Commandos for the Armenian Genocide), ASALA was responsible for the vast majority of the 191 acts of terrorism against Turkish Diplomats and their families as well as Turkish businesses around the world, between January 1973 and November 1986. Mr. Topalian, as the President of the ANC, had many high level contacts at the White House and contributed substantially to the U.S. presidential election campaigns.
A list of the Turkish diplomatic personnel and other citizens murdered by the Armenian terrorists in an organized campaign around the world, is shown in Table 2. This list does not include the additional 16 Turkish Diplomats and numerous Turkish and other citizens wounded in the Armenian terrorists’ attacks. A full chronological list of the Armenian Terrorism during the 1970’s and 1980’s, is shown in Appendix C of this booklet.
The confessions of the 19 year old Armenian terrorist Hampig Sassounian, who murdered the Turkish consul-general in Los Angeles on January 28, 1982 and the 20 year old Levon Ekmekjian, who was the surviving Armenian terrorist in the attack in Ankara’s Esenboga Airport on August 7, 1982, where they massacred 9 Turkish citizens and wounded 82 others, clearly illustrate how young Armenian minds are indoctrinated by false teachings and pushed into terrorism by diabolical men who have their own political agenda.
When Armenian terrorist organizations can openly and proudly murder so many Turkish citizens all around the world and in front of the world’s modern electronic media in the 1970’s and 1980’s, one can easily understand the extent of the massacres the Armenian revolutionary committees inflicted on the Turkish population during the first 20 years of the 20th century, in a far away land and with the encouragement of the Russian and other western allied forces.
The majority of the Canadians and Americans of Turkish origin are still the first generation immigrants with old established Turkish cultural roots and traditions. “Blowing your own horn” is not looked upon favorably in the Turkish culture. The expectation ingrained in the Turkish psyche is that the facts would speak for themselves, decent people would see the truth and silence would be rewarded. There are old proverbs people grow up with, such as “if words are silver, silence is golden”.
The well-known French writer and member of the Academie Francaise, Pierre Loti wrote the following words about Turks in 1928 in his book “Fantome d’Orient”:
“One should be blind to history not to understand the Turks. The dignified silence of the Turks against the mounting unjustified attacks and mean slanders can only be explained by their pity for the blind. How beautifully this attitude of theirs answers the undignified calumnies”.
The Turkish community in North America realizes that the time has come to expose the truth in order to respond to the decades of propaganda and misinformation by Armenian activists. Such activists are now pressuring different Boards of Education in Canada and the U.S., into including in their curricula, the so-called Armenian genocide. Under the disguise of some noble objectives, they are attempting to poison the young minds of children, into believing that the Armenians were the innocent victims of the first genocide of the 20th century. Armenian activists are also planting the seeds of hatred among different ethnic groups, which should not be tolerated within the Canadian multicultural mosaic.
Several articles are reproduced in this booklet, all written by non-Turkish writers and observers, as well as some historical documents included in the Appendix. They illustrate objectively and factually, the Armenian campaign against the Turkish population and the tragic conditions in eastern Anatolia during and after the First World War. They demonstrate clearly that Armenians were not the innocent victims of a “genocide”, however, did suffer the tragic consequences of the activities of their armed revolutionary committees, just as did more than twice as many Turks.
Prof. Justin McCarthy’s words in his article about Armenian Terrorism, reprinted in this booklet, sums up the feeling of the Turks in North America; ” The lesson is obvious – silence does not work. Historical lies, unless they are countered, will perpetuate themselves“.
| Table 2: Turkish and Other Citizens Murdered by Armenians | |||
| Date | Location | Name | Position/Location |
| January 27, 1973 | Santa Barbara | Mehmet Baydar | Turkish Consul General |
| January 27, 1973 | Santa Barbara | Bahadir Demir | Turkish Consul |
| October 22, 1975 | Vienna | Danis Tunaligil | Turkish Ambassador |
| October 24, 1975 | Paris | Ismail Erez | Turkish Ambassador |
| October 24, 1975 | Paris | Talip Yener | Turkish Ambassador’s chauffeur |
| February 16, 1976 | Beirut | Oktar Cirit | First Secretary in Turkish Embassy |
| June 9, 1977 | Rome | Taha Carim | Turkish Ambassador |
| June 2, 1978 | Madrid | Necla Kuneralp | Turkish Ambassador’s wife |
| June 2, 1978 | Madrid | Besir Balcioglu | Retired Turkish Ambassador |
| June 2, 1978 | Madrid | Antonio Torres | Spanish chauffeur |
| October 12, 1979 | The Hague | Ahmet Benler | Turkish Ambassador’s son |
| December 22, 1979 | Paris | Yilmaz Colpan | Turkish Tourism Attache |
| March 10, 1980 | Rome | 1. Italian citizen | Turkish Tourism Bureau |
| March 10, 1980 | Rome | 2. Italian citizen | Turkish Tourism Bureau |
| July 31, 1980 | Athens | Galip Ozmen | Turkish Admimistrative Attache |
| July 31, 1980 | Athens | Neslihan Ozmen | Turkish Administrative Attache’s daughter |
| August 5, 1980 | Lyon | 1. French citizen | Turkish Consulate |
| August 5, 1980 | Lyon | 2. French citizen | Turkish Consulate |
| December 17, 1980 | Sydney | Sarik Ariyak | Turkish Consul General |
| December 17, 1980 | Sydney | Engin Sever | Turkish Consul General’s bodyguard |
| March 4, 1981 | Paris | Resat Morali | Turkish Labour Attache |
| March 4, 1981 | Paris | Tecelli Ari | Religious Affairs Officer in Turkish Embassy |
| March 12, 1981 | Teheran | 1. Guard | Turkish Embassy |
| March 12, 1981 | Teheran | 2. Guard | Turkish Embassy |
| June 9, 1981 | Geneva | Mehmet Yerguz | Secretary in the Turkish Embassy |
| September 24, 1981 | Paris | Cemal Ozen | Security Guard in the Turkish Embassy |
| January 28, 1982 | Los Angeles | Kemal Arikan | Turkish Consul General |
| March 26, 1982 | Beirut | 1. Lebanese citizen | Turkish movie theater |
| March 26, 1982 | Beirut | 2. Lebanese citizen | Turkish movie theater |
| May 4, 1982 | Cambridge, MA | Orhan Gunduz | Turkish Honorary Consul |
| June 7, 1982 | Lisbon | Erkut Akbay | Administrative Attache in Turkish Embassy |
| June 7, 1982 | Lisbon | Nadide Akbay | Administrative Attache’s wife |
| July 1, 1982 | Rotterdam | Kemalettin Demirer | Turkish Consul General |
| August 27, 1982 | Ottawa | Atilla Altikat | Turkish Military Attache |
| September 9, 1982 | Burgaz, Bulgaria | Bora Suelkan | Administrative Attache in Turkish Embassy |
| February 28, 1983 | Paris | Renee Morin | French Secretary at Turkish Travel Agency |
| March 9, 1983 | Belgrade | Galip Balkar | Turkish Ambassador |
| July 14, 1983 | Brussels | Dursun Aksoy | Administrative Attache in Turkish Embassy |
| July 27, 1983 | Lisbon | Cahide Mihcioglu | Deputy Turkish Consul General’s wife |
| April 28, 1984 | Teheran | Isik Yonder | Turkish Embassy employee’s husband |
| June 20, 1984 | Vienna | Erdogan Ozen | Assistant Labour and Social Affairs Counsellor in Turkish Embassy |
| November 19, 1984 | Vienna | Enver Ergun | Deputy Director, Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs |
| March 12, 1985 | Ottawa | Canadian citizen | RCMP officer at the Turkish Embassy |