Category: Main Issues

PanARMENIAN.

Net
02.02.2010 12:25 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2011 (FY11)
budget, released earlier today, calls for $40 million in assistance
to Armenia — $10 million more than his FY10 request, but still
$1 million less than the total appropriated by Congress last year,
reported the Armenian National Committee of America -ANCA.

The figure, while representing a substantial increase over the
President’s last request, falls just short of the $41 million actually
appropriated last year by Congress, and far short of the $70 million
request that was made last year by the Armenian Caucus and broadly
supported by Armenian American advocacy organizations.

The President’s budget proposes maintaining Foreign Military Financing
(FMF) assistance parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan, requesting
$3.5 million for each country. In past years, the White House has
sought to tilt the military aid balance in support of Baku, only to
have its efforts rejected by Congress, which has consistently ensured
balanced FMF figures for the two nations. The Administration did
not extend the parity principle to International Military Training,
Education, and Training (IMET), instead seeking to provide twice as
much for Azerbaijan ($900,000) than Armenia ($450,000) in this area.

The President requested $22.12 million in assistance to Azerbaijan,
$120,000 more than appropriated by Congress last year. The President’s
overall assistance request for Europe and Eurasia is $599,164,000,
which represents a reduction of $11,818,000 from the previous year.

“We welcome the decision by the Obama Administration to ask for
$10 million more in economic aid to Armenia this year than he did
last year, and also his proposal to maintain parity in a key area
of military aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan,” said Aram Hamparian,
Executive Director of the ANCA. “We want to offer our special thanks
to Representatives Frank Pallone, Adam Schiff, Anna Eshoo, and Jackie
Speier – and, of course, Nita Lowey – for their energetic efforts
in sharing with the Administration how increased aid and support
for Armenia advances both U.S. interests and American values in a
strategically important area of the world. We look forward, as well, to
working with all our Congressional friends in building on these numbers
and securing the adoption of increased aid levels and constructive
policy provisions that will contribute to the strengthening of the
U.S.-Armenia relationship and the search for a fair and lasting peace
in the region.”

The proposed assistance to Armenia is a significant improvement over
the FY10 request, which called for a 38% cut in aid to Armenia,
a 20% increase in aid to Azerbaijan, and the abandonment of the
longstanding Armenia-Azerbaijan military aid parity agreement in favor
of Baku. The ANCA led the Armenian American community in expressing
its concerns to the Administration last year, and working with the
Congressional Armenian Caucus and members of the Senate and House
Foreign Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign operations to increase
the figures.

The Foreign Operations Subcommittees of the House and Senate
Appropriation Committees will now review the President’s budget and
each draft their own versions of the FY11 foreign assistance bill.

The Armenian National Committee of America -ANCA is the largest and
most influential Armenian American grassroots political organization.

Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters and
supporters throughout the United States and affiliated organizations
around the world, the ANCA actively advances the concerns of the
Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.

The ANCA is an outgrowth of the American Committee for the Independence
of Armenia (ACIA) which founded after World War I by Vahan Cardashian,
the former Consul of the Ottoman Empire in Washington. Many
prominent American and Allied leaders including James W. Gerard,
the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Charles
Evans Hughes (later appointed Chief Justice of the U.S.

Supreme Court), Elihu Root and others participated to this
organization. The goal of ACIA was the independent Wilsonian Armenia.

The ACIA had a Central Office in New York City and 23 regional offices
in 13 states.

Later, these offices gradually evolved into the Armenian National
Committee of America, which expanded its activities to include public
relations efforts to acquaint local communities about Armenian issues
including the Armenian Genocide and Armenian National aspirations.

Other activities included April 24th commemoration activities,
public forums, voter registration efforts, support for local and
state political candidates, and updating the local community on
Armenian issues.

FROM AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU’S PAPERS, REEL 22
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C. 29540

HENRY I MORGENTHAU,
American Ambassador at Constantinople from 1913 to 1916

Armenian News Network / Groong
February 1, 2010

By KAY MOURADIAN, EdD

For the last six hundred years their history is a record of
persecutions, a real martyrdom. No where else the abuse of brutal
force has been so great as in Turkey. The conquered Christians have
not had security of life, honor or property. Religious toleration has
been practiced under most humiliating conditions. Churches should be
small and not conspicuous; no bells should ring; a Moslem had a
perfect right to stop a Christian on the street and cut his head off
to see if his sword was sharp enough. A Christian should have an
extra handkerchief t take the dust off the shoes of a Moslem at a
signal.

It is only after second half of the 19th century, under pressure of
the European countries, whose influence was growing- that the
condition of Christians in the capital was improved; those living in
the interior were and are still in the same insecure state.

As a result of this oppressive rule, the number of Armenians has
greatly decreased.

Massacres: Thousands have been massacred periodically:
In 1896 (reign of Abdul Hamid) 300,000 perished by violent death,
disease, hunger and exposure.
In 1909 (Young Turk Regime) 20,000 were massacred at Adana.
Thousands have been forced to become Moslems, and many have emigrated
to Europe and America.
But the mass of the people have persisted to stay in their country and
maintained, in spite of all persecutions, their national institutions,
racial traditions, language and religion.
European Powers have principally taken interest in the Armenian
Question since the last Russo-Turkish War (1878), when they obligated
Turkey by Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin to introduce reforms in
the Administration of the Armenian provinces.
The demands of the Armenians were most elementary: They wanted rights
of security of life, honor, and property and equality before the
law. They wanted the establishment of a regime of order and justice
under European control, as experience had proved to them that the
Turks would and could do nothing by themselves in the matter of reforms.
These simple rights have been denied them.
On account of political considerations and rivalry, the Great Powers
have never been able To agree to force the Turks to fulfill the
provisions of Article 61 of the Berlin Treaty.

Reasons of Persecution manifold: 1. Political 2. Economic 3. Social
and Religious Political: The Turks have been unable to assimilate the
Armenians. The latter are on a higher plane by their civilization and
culture. On account of the terrible sufferings they have endured, in
spite of their loyalty and services to the State, they, the Armenians,
have naturally turned their eyes to the European Christian Powers for
help and deliverance. Turks have resented this bitterly and in order
to avoid foreign interference-

instead of following the wiser course of
reforming their administration and thereby solve the problem at its
roots- they have decided to annihilate the Armenian race and thus
terminate the Armenian Question.
The Turks want Turkey for the Turks alone. Therefore by all imaginable
means they have tried to exterminate the Armenians.
A misconceived, narrow, nationalism-combined with a fanaticism of the
blindest and darkest kind- has been one of the chief causes of these
unprecedented persecutions.

Economic: The Turks have been a warring race. They left the Commercial
field to the Christians and the Jews. They have had the army and the
administration of the country in their control.
There are some merchants, artisans and agriculturists among them, but
the vast majority of the Turks are public officials, soldiers and
laborers.
The non-Moslems have become rich through commerce and industry, while
the Turks, in spite of all the assistance they have received from the
Government have made no progress in that line.
To show you how the Armenians control commerce and industry in
Asia Minor, I will mention the following statistical facts regarding
the province of Sivas, where the Armenian population is not so large
as in some other vilayets.
Of 153 factories in vilayet of Sivas, 130 belonged to Armenians, 20 to Turks.
Number of workmen amounted to 17,000, of these 14,000 were Armenians.
Of 316 merchants, 268 were Armenians, 36 Turks, and 12 Greeks.
Of 37 bankers, 32 were Armenians and 5 Turks.

As the Turks could not overtake the Armenians, the Government would
periodically organize massacres and hamper them all the time in order
to check their progress.

Social and Religious:
Fanaticism. The masses of the Turkish people are in dense ignorance
and fanaticism. The number of Turkish schools very limited. Armenians
are unquestionably far more advanced in culture. They have their own
schools which they run at their own expense, while the Turkish
government schools are subsidized by the Government.
The Armenians (like all other non-Moslems in the country) pay taxes
for public instruction but receive no support from the Government for
their schools.
The Government does not favor the creation of new schools by the
Christians, on the contrary they raise all sorts of difficulties to
hamper and obstruct.
Just before the deportations there were:
785 Armenian schools in Turkey, with an attendance of 82,000 students,
while there are only 150 Turkish schools, with an attendance of 17,000.
The Kurds do not have a single school.
This ignorance of the Turks, coupled with religious prejudices, has
been another cause of disagreement between the Turks and the
Armenians, and has rendered the masses of the Turks a ready tool of
persecution in the hands of wicked leaders.
A Christian is never regarded by a Moslem as his equal. A Christian is
considered as a raya, a serf, a subject, never a citizen enjoying
equal rights. And when you consider that not only the ordinary people,
but the rulers also think the same way, and that really there is not a
single governor thoroughly prepared for his position, you would
naturally expect nothing else but these lamentable results.
Recent Developments: Present European War and its bearing on the
Armenian Question.
The present party in power; its sympathy for the Germans growing out
of their enmity to Russia.
While they were at war with the European Powers, they wanted to avail
themselves of the opportunity to exterminate the Armenians while
nobody could stop them. Political considerations prevented Germany and
Austria from interfering with the atrocities committed by their
Turkish ally.
The Turks claim that they had to resort to these stringent means for
their safety as the Armenians were not loyal. But even supposing that
the deportations were necessary, nothing can justify, as the Turks
admit it themselves, the atrocious crimes which were committed.

Methods of Extermination:
1. Requisitions, goods taken without payment, resulting in economic ruin.
2. Confiscations
3. Forced exorbitant contributions and taxes
4. Searches in Armenian houses for arms, but in reality for pillage.
5. Bastinado, torture beyond imagination, too obscene to be related.
6. Forced conversion to Mohammedanism.
7. Massacres, partial and wholesale, women, children and old men and
women not spared.
8. Deportations: Slow death, with all accompanying horrors on the
way. No means of Transportation, had to walk on foot most of the
way. En route attacks by bands of criminals especially liberated from
prisons for that purpose. Women, young ladies violated daily, at each
village on their way; many of them taken to harems; families
separated; mothers threw themselves into river with their children to
save themselves from shame.

No provisions made for food or shelter for these unfortunate people,
many of whom are educated, and well-to-do people, who are not allowed
to draw their own money from their bank as the Government had
confiscated it together with their property as `abandoned property’.
They sold their furniture at ridiculously low prices when they were
ordered to leave their homes and start on a trip with an unknown
destination. They sold pianos at $5, cows at $3. Even these moneys
were stolen from them on the way.
There are bishops, doctors, lawyers, professors, journalists among
them, dead, dying…Thousands have died of exhaustion, exposure,
disease, want of food. Corpses of children were seen on roads by
travelers.

Relief Work:
Americans have been the first and most important helpers.
Interest of America purely humanitarian.
Missionaries have been foremost. Their sympathy towards Armenians very
deep their whole work has been among them.
Activities of Embassy, consulates, and Missionaries in distribution of
funds and food among sufferers.
Money goes direct to its object; no expenses, New York philanthropist
is paying expenses himself.
Present rupture of relations between America and Turkey has not
affected work of relief. We have three distinct channels for
transmission of relief funds, and have devoted and reliable workers on
the field there for their distribution.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians need immediate help. Latest
telegrams received from Turkey and the Caucasus make strong appeals
for continued help. No funds on hand, already overdrawn $40,000 to
give the poor people a morsel of bread.

If interested in reading more from Kay Mouradian’s historical
research, connect through her website: www.aGiftInTheSunlight.com

Kay Mouradian’s articles in this series are archived on Groong’s
website at: http://www.groong.org/orig/voices-from-the-past.html

Formerly American Ambassador to Turkey

ILLUSTRATED

Fig. 1. HENRY I MORGENTHAU,
American Ambassador at Constantinople from 1913 to 1916

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1918

.

TO

WOODROW WILSON
THE EXPONENT IN AMERICA OF THE ENLIGHTENED PUBLIC OPINION OF THE WORLD, WHICH HAS DECREED THAT THE RIGHTS OF SMALL NATIONS SHALL BE RESPECTED AND THAT SUCH CRIMES AS ARE DESCRIBED IN THIS BOOK SHALL NEVER AGAIN DARKEN THE PAGES OF HISTORY

.

PREFACE

By this time the American people have probably become convinced that the Germans deliberately planned the conquest of the world. Yet they hesitate to convict on circumstantial evidence and for this reason all eye witnesses to this, the greatest crime in modern history, should volunteer their testimony.

I have therefore laid aside any scruples I had as to the propriety of disclosing to my fellow countrymen the facts which I learned while representing them in Turkey. I acquired this knowledge as the servant of the American people, and it is their property as much as it is mine.

I greatly regret that I have been obliged to omit an account of the splendid activities of the American Missionary and Educational Institutions in Turkey, but to do justice to this subject would require a book by itself. I have had to omit the story of the Jews in Turkey for the same reasons.

My thanks are due to my friend, Mr. Burton J. Hendrick, for the invaluable assistance he has rendered in the preparation of the book.

HENRY MORGENTHAU.
October, 1918.

---

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Chapter One: A German superman at Constantinople

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A12