A Turkish Genocide Denier Pope Francis
Pope Francis’s Crime against Humanity and Pope Francis’s Act of Genocide
Mehmet Sukru Guzel
Pope Francis called Armenian deaths as the “First Genocide of 20th Century” without mentioning more than 500,000 civilian Turks killed by non-state Armenian armed groups.
In fact, if the word “genocide” is to be used for the First World War period, Pope Francis should accept that the first genocide of the First World War was committed by non-state Armenian armed groups in the former territories of the Ottoman Empire of Kars, Ardahan and their environs that were lost by the Ottoman Empire to Russia after the 1877-78 Ottoman-Russian War. [1]
Ottoman sources reported some 30,000 Muslim civilians killed; more recent scholarship has pointed to an even higher number, as many as 45,000 in the Chorokhi valley alone. Traveling the Ardahan-Merdenek road in Ardahan province in early January 1915, an Azeri Duma deputy, Mahmud Yusuf Dzhafarov, witnessed “mass graves of unarmed Muslims on both sides of the road.” Whatever the exact number of victims, the wave of Christian vengeance killings against Caucasian Muslims was serious enough that the long-serving viceroy of the Caucasus, Count I. Vorontsov-Dashkov, issued a series of decrees forbidding further atrocities while also ordering the deportation of about 10,000 Muslims from sensitive areas near the front lines to the Russian interior. [2]
Genocide is accepted as a jus cogens crime.” Jus cogens is a peremptory norm and is a fundamental principle of international law that is accepted by the international community of states as a norm from which no derogation is permitted. There is no clear agreement regarding precisely which norms are jus cogens nor how a norm reaches that status, but it is generally accepted that jus cogens includes the prohibition of genocide, maritime piracy, slaving in general (to include slavery as well as the slave trade), torture, non-refoulement and wars of aggression and territorial aggrandizement”. [3]
In addition, “genocide and crimes against humanity also give rise to obligation of the perpetrating States toward the entire international community, erga omnes doctrine. Ergo omnes doctrine also includes non-state armed groups’ acts. [4]
Pope Francis should remember the International Court of Justice’s judgment in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adjudicating claims by Bosnia and Herzegovina that Serbia had breached its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 (“Genocide Convention”). The International Court of Justice found that Serbia, as a state, had neither committed genocide in Bosnia nor been complicit in the crime of genocide.
The International Court of Justice did, however, conclude that Serbia -through its continued support of Bosnian Serbs in light of the probability that some of them would commit the crime of genocide- had “violated the obligation to prevent genocide in respect of the genocide that occurred in Srebrenica in July 1995. [5]
We have to remember that Bosnian Serbs were a non-state armed group and they committed the crime of Genocide. On 9 January 1992, the Republic of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina (subsequently renamed the Republika Srpska on 12 August 1992) was declared with the proviso that the declaration would come into force upon international recognition of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On 28 February 1992, the Constitution of the Republic of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina was adopted. The Republic of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina (and subsequently the Republika Srpska) was not and has not been recognized internationally as a State; it has however enjoyed some de facto independence. [6]
The Republika Srpska never attained international recognition as a sovereign State, but it had de facto control of substantial territory as the non- state Armenian armed groups in the Eastern Anatolia. [7]
The International Court of Justice confirmed that genocide had been committed in Srebenica. If a single massacre satisfies the criterion of Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, certainly the Armenian massacres against the Turks in Russian controlled territory before the relocation – resettlement decision of Armenians in Ottoman Empire would qualify as genocide. Non-state armed Armenian groups committed massacres against Turks at the back of the war frontier in different parts of Anatolia as well.
In the context of the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia, the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution No.47/121 of 18 December 1992 found that Bosnian Serbians policy of “ethnic cleansing” constituted “a form of genocide”. This resolution was confirmed in General Assembly Resolution 48/143, 49/295, 50/192, 51/115, etc. [8]
In the same vein, the “ethnic cleansing by killing” committed by Armenians in Kars, Ardahan and their environs constituted the first genocide of the First World War in January 1915.
As all historian and international politicians knows that for a specific date and specific place of historical events based on religious and racial issues, if only a portion, or one side of the specified events is to be mentioned and only one side is side to be accused of the same actions, this is a discrimination on religion and racial origin. And this is the legitimization of crimes of the other side on religious and racial reasons which is a crime by itself. No normal person can believe then more than 500.000 civilians Turks could be killed including children, woman and older people on self-defence actions of Armenian non-state armed groups. By not mentioning of the killings of more than 500.000 Turks, Pope Francis’ speech s should be accepted as the legitimation of the war crime acts of Armenian non-state armed groups and this is a crime against humanity.
International Court of Justice gives the definition of Crimes against Humanity as:
Include any of the following acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: murder; extermination; enslavement; deportation or forcible transfer of population; imprisonment; torture; rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; persecution against an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender grounds; enforced disappearance of persons; the crime of apartheid; other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering or serious bodily or mental injury. [9]
All these crimes were committed by non-state Armenian armed groups to the Turkish civilians and Pope Francis ignored these crimes in his speech.
Without mentioning the genocide to Turks committed by non-state Armenian armed groups just in the beginning of the First World War till the end of year 1921 and the calling Armenian genocide by Pope Francis can only be explained by racial and religious discrimination. This call of Pope Francis was based on blaming only one side for what happened in the past. It is call from the international community to accept acts of so-called “superior” and “civilized” Armenian non-state armed groups acting against to Muslims Turks. This is the mind-set of a holy Christian War against Muslims, as was the case during the Crusades. In such a mind-set, no one can blame Armenians for committing genocide against Turks in the Christian world.
The logic of call of Pope Francis is based on superiority of Armenian race in their actions and do not accept any responsibility of the non-state Armenian armed groups war crimes. This is against the equality of the nations and equality of religions.
In his speech Pope Francis, by not mentioning and ignoring genocide of more than 500.000 civilian Turks, killed by the non-state Armenian armed groups, makes racial and religious discrimination for the legitimization of this crime. As mentioned Genocide is a jus cogens crime. Jus cogens is a peremptory norm and is a fundamental principle of international law that is accepted by the international community of states as a norm from which no derogation is permitted. With this, Pope Francis speech is against a fundamental principle of international law and elementary considerations of humanity principle.
And most important, Pope Francis’s speech is against Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948 and should be accepted as a crime of genocide as Pope Francis tried to legitimize genocide crimes of non-state Armenian Armed groups means; “ direct and public incitement to commit genocide” on racial and religious bases.
[10)
And some one can wonder what is the difference between Vatican and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) after the speech of Pope Francis. Since Pope Francis and ISIS use the same logic of religious discrimination to legitimize the war crimes acts of military groups.
Pope Francis will be remembered in the future as a Turkish Genocide denier.
Mehmet Şükrü Güzel
Switzerland Representative of Center for International Strategy and Security Studies
1), Definition of non-state armed groups are defined as: ‘any armed group, distinct from and not operating under the control of, the state or states in which it carries out military operations, and which has political, religious, and/or military objectives. Bellal, A., Giacca, G., CaseyMaslen, S. “International Law Applicable to Armed Non State Actors in Afghanistan”, International Review of the Red Cross, No. 881, 2011, p. 48. The methodology used by non-state Armenian groups against the Turks should much more be categorized under the acts of terrorism as defined in the Dictionary of Criminal Justice. “Terrorism is different from murder, assault, arson, demolition of property, or the threat of the same; the reason is that the impact of terrorist violence and damage reaches more than the immediate target victims (e.g., government or military). It is also directed at targets consisting of a larger spectrum of society (e.g., civilians or even society as a whole). Terrorism is distinct from regular crime because of its powerful objectives. The change is desired so desperately that the inability to achieve change is perceived as a worse consequence than the deaths of civilians. Terrorist acts are both mala prohibita acts and mala in se acts. Mala prohibita acts are “crimes that are made illegal by legislation”; mala in se acts are crimes “that are immoral or wrong in themselves.” Rush, George E. The Dictionary of Criminal Justice (5th Ed.). Guildford, CT: McGraw-Hill, 2002 pp.204–205
2), Sean McMeekin,”The Russian Origins of the First World War”, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2011, p.160
3), M. Cherif Bassiouni. “International Crimes: ‘Jus Cogens’ and ‘Obligatio Erga Omnes’.” Law and Contemporary Problems. (Autumn 1996) Vol. 59, No. 4, p. 68. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol59/iss4/6/, 20.02.2015
4), The term erga omnes refers are the obligations concern all States by their nature. International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion Concerning Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory , 18.02.2015
5), Dermot Groome, “ Adjudicating Genocide: Is the International Court of Justice Capable of Judging State Criminal Responsibility?”, Fordham International Law Journal, Volume 31, Issue 4 2007, pp-912
6), International Court of Justice, Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro)
7), International Court of Justice, Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Judgment of 26 February 2007, paragraph 235, , 05/01/2015
8), Alfred de Zayas, “The Genocide against the Armenians 1915-1923 and the Relevance of the 1948 Genocide Convention”, Haigazian University, Beirut 2010, p.21
9),What are crimes against humanity? International Criminal Court, x 01.02.2015
10), Article 3 (c) of Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide accepts direct and public incitement to commit genocide as an act which shall be punishable.
