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Attorney A. Erdem Akyüz

Member of Ankara Bar Association,

General Director of Society of Law Sovereign

[email protected]

There have been discussions on recognition of Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire carried out at the sessions of the Parliaments in various countries, and some resolutions for official recognition of Armenian Genocide has recently been passed by some of the Parliaments. Actually, accusation of Armenian Genocide has also been used as an instrument of bargaining and compulsion for Turkey to make some political or economical compromises before and after these resolutions.

Apart from the fact that it is still a question whether the crime was actually committed or who committed the genocide against whom, I would like to quote literally the memories of my father, who actually lived at the place and date regarding genocide accusations, without making any comments, but making a historical record by letting the reader to decide.

My father’s family is a well-known family residing in Erzurum for many decades. His family used to be called as “Molla Ahmet Oğulları” at the times when titles were used instead of surnames, and the family has a history that goes back to generations. My father, Mahir Akyüz, was born in 1903 in Erzurum. He is one of the first Judges of the Republic of Turkey. His professional life started when he was assigned as an interrogator (“Müstantik”) in 1926; he became an attorney at law admitted to Ankara Bar Association in 1968 and passed away in 1973. His photograph, which was taken in the period of his first assignment as a judge, is highly interesting as it reflects the fashion of that era.

He was a child at the age of 12-13 when Erzurum was invaded by Russians and Armenians in 1916. When Russians started to retreat as the result of Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Erzurum was left to Armenians. My father used to narrate, without any hatred or particular malice whatsoever, some events starting from March 12, 1918 until Armenians left the country. I remember the following events narrated by my father at home during long nights as true stories based on his experiences:

TURKS WERE TAKEN AWAY FROM THEIR HOUSES (1)

“It was the times of Armenian and Russian invasion took place in Erzurum. It was a cold winter night. Our door was riotously knocked. Several armed Armenian invaders dressed like Comitadji[1] entered into the house. They took my father, Ahmet, and me out of the house by force. They knocked out my mother, Raife, who tried to stop them, with butt-stroke of their rifle. My little sister, Emine, cringed at the corner looking behind us with her scared eyes. Back then, I was a 12-13 years old child. My father was a white-bearded and old-aged person who was over the age of 60. They took us from our homes and put the entire neighborhood in line on the street. After they lined us up, a young Russian soldier approached us a little later. He said: ‘Old man, you are aged; take your kid and go!’ Then, we went back to our home. While we were trying to close the door, the door was wide open again. It was opened by one of the Armenian soldiers who previously came to our home and took us away. He cursed, took away, lined up and butt-stroked us again. While we were walking in line, the same young Russian soldier saw us once again. Then, he took us out of the line and signed us to go with his hand. We rushed to our home. We had a wooden cabinet where we used to put our bed mattresses. My father hid himself in the cabinet; my mother and sister covered him with blankets. My mother put me in tandoor. ‘Tandoor’ is an oven built underground for insulation; a fire is kindled inside, and it is used for baking breads and cooking foods in Erzurum houses. She closed the tandoor. It was not cold yet. My hands and feet hurt, but I could do nothing. After a while, I heard noises. Our house door was completely broken. They were messing up and breaking our goods into pieces. They were searching the house to find us. Then, I heard distant outcries; and they left. It took hours for me to get out of the tandoor; my mother covered my cheeks with a piece of cloth. We could go out at dawn on the next day. By shaking in the cold, we walked along with our neighbors consisting of old men, women and children, who were left behind. The mosque of our neighborhood was half burnt. You could still see the smoke rising up in the air. We found our neighbors who were taken from their houses at night. They couldn’t survive from the fire or the bullets.”

We used to hear my fathers’ childhood memories with fascination by sitting around the same tandoor in Erzurum, and we used to look at the burn marks on his hands and feet.

My father used to say that his big brother, Ismail, was a soldier fighting on Tripoli, Balkan and Caucasian fronts at the same time. He was fighting in defense of his country when his father and mother were under invasion. My father used to tell the followings about his brother with a great respect: “My big brother came from the front after the invasion. Fingers of his left hand were crushed. He used to pick up and hold me in his arms. I used to push his crushed fingers to open his hand, but he couldn’t hold his fingers straight and they were curled up just like a spring as soon as I stopped pushing his fingers. He used to tell me that he fell down when he was fighting at Caucasian front, and his fingers were crushed under the feet of one of the horses of chevaliers. Then he was called to front again. He never came back. They said that he became a prisoner of war in Russia.” My father, Mahir Akyüz, who witnessed the days of Armenian and Russian invasion, became one of the first judges of the Republic of Turkey by granting the title of interrogator (“Müstantik”) in 1926. As the result of long and exhausting researches that he carried out, he found the tomb of his big brother, “Ahmet oğlu Ismail” at “Turkish War Cemetery in Vladivostok, where he died as a martyr.

The photograph of my grandfather white-bearded Ahmet Akyüz, my grandmother Raife Akyüz and my father, Mahir Akyüz, who survived the genocide only by chance, shall be a historical witness with regards to their suffering and pain experienced 100 years ago. If my father couldn’t get out of the line that they were put or if they were caught by Armenian soldiers in my father’s house, none of the members of our family, his five children who became doctors, lawyers and engineers as well as our children, would not be born. In other words, not only his generation survived genocide, but also ours. Consequently, the fate of the neighborhood exposed to fire and bullets in the mosque ended up by suffering and losing their lives.

This Republic and State had experienced hard days in the last century. Undoubtedly, similar cases and stories could be found in any family witnessing the same period.

Attorney A. Erdem Akyüz

Member of Ankara Bar Association,

General Director of Society of Law Sovereign

[email protected]

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[1] The term Komitadji (also known as Comitadji or Komitaji) (Bulgarian Комити; Romanian: Comitagiu; from Turkish: Komitacı, “a rebel, member of a secret revolutionary society”) refers to members of Bulgarian rebel bands operating in the Balkans during the final period of the Ottoman Empire, fighting against Turkish authorities and rival Greek and Serbian groups. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komitadji

By Anca Gurzu Published April 21, 2010

In 1915, the region of Eastern Anatolia was being threatened by czarist Russian troops and the Ottaman Empire was crumbling. The Ottomans decided to forcibly relocate about 700,000 Armenians from the eastern region to create a buffer zone against the Russians. This resulted in horrific death and suffering as people starved and faced harsh wartime conditions. The Armenian diaspora, and many other Western countries, describe the events as a genocide—organized killings meant to eliminate the Armenians.

Scott Taylor believes there are always two sides of history, and he has tried to put the events in a deeper context in his new book Unreconciled Differences: Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan by highlighting Turkey’s explanation of the events, and, implicitly, how little we know about this conflict.

Mr. Taylor, a war correspondent and the editor and publisher of Ottawa-based military magazine Esprit de Corps, is also critical of Canada’s decision to formally refer to the 1915 deportation as genocide.

He also discusses the 1992-94 conflict between the post-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia over the sovereignty of Nagorno-Karabakh province. This conflict resulted in the displacement of about 800,000 Azeris and thousands of deaths.

Embassy spoke with Mr. Taylor this week, and the following is an edited transcript of that conversation:

What drew your interests to these two specific conflicts in the Caucasus?

“I think the biggest thing for me was to realize how little I knew. I hadn’t ever heard about the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. When I was heading to Azerbaijan for the first time in 2006 and they told me there is a frozen conflict, I said ‘what?’ It never made our newspapers, there were some reports, but I certainly didn’t pick up on them.

“These are really two overlooked conflicts of World War One and the present day, and it’s almost embarrassing that a war of that scale was happening while I was a war correspondent and covering places like Cambodia, Croatia, Bosnia, etc., and didn’t really know about it.

You are trying to tell Turkey’s side of the story in the 1915 departation, which you say is not well known worldwide because of the strong Armenian diaspora. Why do you think that was necessary?

“There is a discussion on whether this was a deliberately-ordered genocide or a completely botched relocation and deportation of the Armenians…. Everyone can agree that the aftermath was horrific, there is no discussion on that. No one denies that hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished at that particular point in time.

“What the Turks point out is that the Armenians were also openly engaged in warfare against the Turks and the Kurds in the region and fought alongside the Russians, and in many cases committed atrocities and barbarous acts themselves.”

“So this is part of the problem. You begin to realize that there are two divergent sides of the story. [The Armenians] managed to somehow present themselves as a singular victim and I think that’s the thing that’s important. There wasn’t just one victim. Was there human suffering? Absolutely. But at the same time, what were they doing? Burning down villages and houses.

“[The situation] isn’t as clear-cut as it is meant to be believed here, as the diaspora presents it. What holds the diaspora together is that they were the survivors of a genocide. That’s become part of their folklore, their myth, of who they are. That’s what bonds them.”

Throughout your book you’re critical of Canada’s resolution to refer to the 1915 displacement of Armenians as genocide. What’s the impact of such resolutions?

“They make it tougher to close that gap. Because now [the diaspora] can say, ‘Well look, it’s been decided by other countries [that it was a genocide].’

“How many issues are there where people are demanding things to be recognized? Even the Poles could be demanding that the Russians recognize what happened in the Katyn forest. Why should our Parliament be determining these things? We have two very different histories in our own country as well. For us to declare ourselves on one side or another seems kind of pompous and pretentious given how little we know.”

Why did you decide to address the more recent Azeri-Armenian conflict in the same book and how are they connected?

“I think it was the comparison of massive deportation. [The Armenians] cleansed out some 800,000 Azeris in neighbouring provinces, they went beyond just the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. They were able to cleanse out a huge region, and there still so many people living in refugee camps today….

“I asked the Armenians, ‘How can you say that the the Turks forcibly relocated you to create a buffer zone for security, and then you forcibly relocate 800,000 Azeris to, in your own words, create a buffer zone? How can you not compare the two?’ They did the same thing. There are similarities in what happened.”

Many of your chapters begin with personal narratives, memories of your trip to the regions or even of your background. What role do they play in your book?

“The goal is to find a common ground between the facts and the reader, who is going to discover the way I did, without having any idea about it. My background, and seeing other sides of conflicts, being in Belgrade during the bombing and seeing the dehumanizing of the Serbs, even to this day and age, that has led me to pursue the other side of the story. There are no evil people. There are evil persons, but not people. You cannot declare Turks evil.”

Unreconciled Differences: Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan

By Scott Taylor

Esprit de Corps Books

176 pp. $19.95

[email protected]