Tag: 24 Nisan 1915

  • FACTS ABOUT APRIL 24, 1915

    FACTS ABOUT APRIL 24, 1915

    FACTS ABOUT APRIL 24, 1915:

    THE DATE COMMEMORATED BY ARMENIANS AS “GENOCIDE DAY”

    April 24, which Armenians widely accept as the “date of genocide”, has nothing to do with the mandatory relocation and resettlement decision implemented against the Armenians. The decision to migrate a certain portion of the minority Ottoman Armenian population was taken later on May 27, 1915. 

    April 24, however, is the date of three important decisions that were made, on details of which I shall below elaborate.

    1.  April 24 is the date on which mutinous Armenian Committee centers were shut down.

    During the First World War (WWI), while the Ottoman Empire was fighting its enemies on eight separate fronts, five of which being primary and three being secondary fronts, Armenians who were carried away by the empty promises of the imperialist states rebelled to establish an “independent Armenia” on the territories of the Ottoman Empire. While the Ottoman Armies were fighting their enemies on multiple fronts, they were also having to fight behind the front lines to suppress these Armenian rebellions. The suppression of these rebel and criminal elements necessitated the Ottoman Empire to divide and allocate its military forces in the face of the enemy to ensure public order. This situation created a very serious security vulnerability that weakened the military operations of the Ottoman (Turkish) Army.

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    Aiming to establish an “independent Armenia” by changing the demographic structure of the regions in which they rebelled, “revolutionary” Armenian factions formed into armed gangs and began perpetrating massacres in Turkish villages, which consisted only of women, children and elderly people as men capable of bearing arms were already drafted into the military. In addition to these massacres, Armenians made many other attempts to inflict real harm on the Ottoman Army.

    Armenians who were under arms deserted their positions in the Ottoman Army along with their issued weapons, joined the ranks of the enemy armies, and entered Anatolia as defected vanguard units of the Russian Caucasian Armies. On the Iraqi and Palestinian fronts, 8,000 Armenians fought on the side of the British Army, against the Turkish Army. The Armenians that remained behind, spied for the enemy armies, and attacked the Turkish Army’s supply convoys. Armenian bakers poisoned Ottoman Soldiers by adding arsenic poison into the breads they baked.

    Despite all warnings, mutinous Armenians continued to massacre innocent civilians and disrupt the military operations of the Ottoman Army. Hence, the Ottoman Empire made a decision to shut down the Armenian Committee Centers, confiscate their weapons and documents, and arrest the committee leaders on April 24, 1915. In this context, 226 Armenian committee leaders were arrested in Istanbul. 

    Thousands of cached weapons, munitions and bombs were seized during the searches conducted by the Ottoman authorities in the homes and workplaces of these 226 arrested committee leaders. 155 of the arrested committee leaders were sent to the City of Çankırı and 71 were sent to Ayaş District. However, not all of the arrested (persons) were put in prison. Those sent to Çankırı were interned in summer houses in groups of two or three and were allowed to roam freely in and around the city. They were only required to visit the police station once a day to prove that they did not leave the area.

    Armenians named Mardiros (son of Arshak) and Arshak Diradoryan, who were being kept under supervised surveillance, stated to the Ottoman authorities that their financial situations deteriorated due to their prolonged internments and requested financial aid. Their requests for financial aid were accepted. 35 of the Armenians who were sent to Çankırı were later found innocent upon trials and were allowed to return to Istanbul. 3 of the 7 Armenian foreign committee leaders were deported and 31 Armenians were pardoned by the Ottoman State. Three of the committee leaders held in Ayaş District were later released due to the signing of Armistice of Mudros, and the remaining ones were released upon the occupation of Istanbul by the British occupation forces.

    One of them, named Gomidas Vartabed, was interned in the City of Çankırı for a duration of only 13 days. He was later pardoned along with his 7 comrades, and all were allowed to return to Istanbul. Vartabed later came down with an illness in 1917 and went to Vienna to receive treatment. He later moved to France in 1919 and died in Paris, in 1935. A statue was later erected in Paris, in the name of Gomidas Vartabed, with the following phrase written underneath: “Turks massacred 1.5 million Armenians”. This alone should suffice to reveal the invalidity of the Armenian claims and the extent of history fraud they have been committing.

    2. April 24 was the date on the morning of which enemy forces were to land in Gallipoli.

    April 24 was also the date on the morning of which the British, French, Indian and ANZAC troops were to land on the Gallipoli Peninsula and report to their battle stations. As a matter of fact, Commander of the 19th Division, Staff Lieutenant Col. Mustafa Kemal, ordered his division to move to the coastal areas where the enemy was likely to land on the night of April 24, 1915.

    Had the Armenian committee leaders in Istanbul not been arrested on April 24, internal uprisings would have been ignited inside the areas controlled by the Ottoman Military, especially in Istanbul, in synchronicity with the landing operations of the enemy troops which was to occur in the morning of April 25, 1915. This would essentially leave the Ottoman Army between crossfires and severely weaken the defense of Çanakkale. At the end of the war, the plan was that England, France, and Russia (aka the “Triple Entente”) would seize the Ottoman Capital, Istanbul, dismantle the Ottoman Empire and establish for Armenians a sovereign Armenian State. This is what was promised to the rebellious Ottoman Armenian political factions. However, when the leaders of the rebellion were arrested in a timely fashion on April 24, the plans of both the Armenians and the imperialist states that promised them sovereignty were averted. Armenians, whose hopes of establishing an “independent Armenia” were dashed forever with the arrest of the Committee leaders on April 24, 1915, cannot help but commemorating this day every year as if it were a day of national disaster even though this date has nothing to do with the mandatory relocation and resettlement decision.

    As the rebel Armenians continued with their rebellions and massacres, even after the decision to arrest the committee leaders, the Ottoman Empire, in consultation with her ally, Germany, decided to forcibly migrate them on May 27, 1915. In this context, under the state’s self-defense doctrine, the Ottoman Empire decided that the mutinous Armenians who formed into gangs and massacred civilians would have to be removed from the regions they inhabited and be forcibly transferred to provinces such as Damascus and Mosul. This was no “mass deportation” as widely claimed by some historians though because these places were still Ottoman territories at the time but were far away from the war zone. However, not all Armenians in Anatolia were subjected to relocation, either. Those who were subjected to mandatory relocation were under such orders on a temporary basis only. They were later allowed to return to their places of residence once the orders of temporary relocation were lifted by the Ottoman Minister of Interior, Talat Pasha. 

    Before the onset of WWI, some of the Ottoman Armenians in Anatolia immigrated to other countries of their own accord, while some of them stated that they decided to change their religion and become “Muslims”, in order to elude the mandatory migration orders. 87% of the 438,758 Armenians who were relocated, safely reached their relocation destinations. The Armenian losses en route, during this period of mandatory relocation is 56,610 persons. This number, in fact, includes those who escaped from the convoys during relocation and returned home and those who died from various diseases. The number of Ottoman soldiers who died from epidemics in the same period was 466,759 persons. 9 times more Turks than the Armenian losses incurred during the mandatory relocation practice (518,105 persons) were directly killed by Armenian rebels, inside Anatolia. And 7 times more Turks (413,000 persons) were killed by Armenians in the Trans-Caucasia, as historians and researchers later found out.

    3.    April 24 is the date when a “Mandatory Migration Decision” was made for the Turks

    The importance of April 24 date for the Turks, however, is based on reasons quite different. When the Russian Army crossed the Turkish border and began invading Eastern Anatolia, under the guidance of the Armenian vanguard units who deserted their positions in the Ottoman Army along with their issued weapons, thus effectively joining the Russian Army, Armenians residing in the region around the City of Van formed into gangs and began massacres in the City Center of Van (as well as surrounding districts and villages). Taking advantage of the fact that only the Gendarmerie Detachment remained in the City of Van upon the 33rd Infantry Division leaving the city to intercept the Russian Army, the Armenians burned down the Ottoman Bank, the Public Collections (“Duyunu Umumiye”) Building and the Post Office in Van on April 20, 1915, while setting ablaze all Muslim quarters of the city.

    During this period, Armenians massacred 22,900 Muslims, within one month, in the Van Province alone. During the period in which Armenian gangs’ attacks on the Muslim civilians intensified, Van Governor Cevdet Bey tried to ensure the safety of the people who were stuck outside the Van Castle by allowing them to take refuge inside the castle. However, after the Armenian gangs attacked the Van Castle too, Governor Cevdet Bey sent a letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs on April 24, 1915, requesting that the Muslim residents of Van be allowed to migrate westwards so that they may be saved from the massacres of the Armenian gangs.

     In other words, the date of April 24, over which the Armenians raise hell claiming that it is the “day of genocide”, is actually the date on which a very tough decision had to be made to migrate westward the civilian Muslim population of Van, consisting primarily of women, children and elderly, who sought refuge in the Van Castle so that they could escape the cruelest massacres of the armed Armenian gangs. After a permission was obtained to migrate the civilian Muslim population westward in Anatolia, 80,000 survivors of the Muslim population in Van had to leave their lands and migrate in utter panic and frenzy. Most of these Muslim civilians died on the road due to attacks by Armenian gangs, starvation, and disease. The number of Muslims massacred by Armenians in Van Province only, between 1914 and 1921 was 217,132 people. In each massacre case, the identities of the murderers and the victims are provided in detail in the Ottoman archival records. Ottoman Archives have two recorded volumes of documents totaling 1329 pages, that tell us in explicit details on what day, at what time and in what ways these heinous murders were committed. 

    The number of Turks who had to migrate to escape the Armenian massacres increased over time and reached to 1,604,038 persons. This number is more than 3.5 times the number of Armenians subjected to forced relocation (438,758 persons), and two-thirds of them (about 1,000,000 people) lost their lives en route. When this number is added to the number of 931,105, which is the number of Turks and other Muslims murdered by Armenians in the regions they inhabited, the number of Turks and other Muslims persons killed, reaches 2 million.

    Comparison of the Migration Conditions of Turks and Armenians

    The Ottoman Empire provided all possible assistance to the migrating Armenians before, during and after the relocation practice was undertaken. Before the relocation, the property and land left behind by the displaced Armenians were recorded and taken into the protective custody of the State. Perishable goods were sold at local auctions by committees and the proceeds were transferred into protected state accounts on behalf of the owners. Information such as the type, quantity, value of the goods sold, and to whom they were sold were recorded in special books and upon being approved by the committee, reports were kept in two original copies. One copy was provided to the Government and one official copy was provided to the “Abandoned Properties Commission”. 98% of the properties, money and real estate taken into State custody were returned to the Armenian returnees after the end of WWI.

    The Ministry of Internal Affairs has taken measures to ensure that the Armenians subjected to mandatory relocation reached their destinations safely. Before commencing the mandatory relocation practice, the Ottoman Government wrote letters to all local provinces, instructing them to take the necessary precautions and stock up on food to meet all the needs of the migrant convoys that would pass through their regions. For this purpose, a budget of 2,250,000 Ottoman Kurush (currency) was allocated to the local sanjaks and provinces. This figure corresponds to nearly 74 billion Turkish Liras in today’s currency.

    The Ottoman Empire provided train tickets to the Armenians who were subjected to mandatory relocation, gave an ox cart to each family in places where there was no railway, established food centers in Nusaybin, Rasulayn, Tel-Ermen and Kirkil for the migrant convoys and provided hot meals for them, under wartime conditions where the Ottoman soldiers were fighting on empty stomachs in the Battle of Çanakkale. Ottoman Government even built hospitals to treat sick Armenians. In addition, the elders among the displaced Armenians were paid an allowance of 3 Kurush per day, and their children were paid an allowance of 60 para (currency) per day.

    Dispatching of Armenian migrants were halted temporarily after November 25, 1915, due to winter conditions, and permanently on February 21, 1916.

    The Ottoman State provided relocated Armenians with deeded houses, arable lands and seeds, tools and capital with which they could practice of their professions in their new places of residence. In addition, the debts of Armenian persons (subjected to mandatory relocation) to the State and private individuals were either frozen or wiped off completely. Also, all criminal proceedings against criminals and suspects of Armenian origin were postponed.

    After the end of WWI, the Ottoman Government issued a decree on January 4, 1919, allowing Armenians who were subjected to mandatory relocation to return to their former places of residence. Instructions were telegraphed to the relevant local authorities to ensure the safe transfer of Armenians who wanted to return to their former places of residence and the necessary security precautions were duly taken.

    However, Turks, who ended up having to leave their lands and migrate in order to save their lives by escaping Armenian oppression, could not benefit from any of the above-mentioned privileges afforded to Armenian migrants. They had to migrate by their own means. And while migrating, two thirds of the 1,604,031 Turkish migrants lost their lives due to reasons such as attacks by Armenian gangs, starvation, disease and freezing to death.

    As the child of a family from Van who left their ancestral lands behind and migrated westward to escape the Armenian massacres, one who lost many martyrs out of his family during this ordeal, I wrote this article to sincerely provide the above facts little known to the Turkish public and the world public at large. I hope that this article, which is based entirely on documented facts, will contribute to exposing the “Armenian genocide” lies and understanding of the real historical facts. And I surely hope that those who unjustly accuse us, Turks, of genocide will at least blush after reading this article, if they have even an ounce of shame left in them.

    Assoc Prof. Dr. Ömer Lütfi Taşcıoğlu (Ret. Staff Col., Turkish Armed Forces)

    President, FEYM Study Group

  • Biden disregarded four articles of the U.S. constitution

    Biden disregarded four articles of the U.S. constitution

    April 18, 2023
    President Joe Biden
    The White House
    1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
    Washington, DC 20500

    Re: President Biden disregarded four articles of the U.S. constitution by describing the 1915 events as genocide 

    Dear Mr. President, 

    We are writing this letter as the representatives of the Turkish American community, to express our disappointment and dismay concerning your one-sided declaration on April 24, 2022, that the Ottoman Empire committed genocide on its Armenian subjects in 1915.  A claim which was never proven legally or through historical research.  

    Mr. President, we are aware and proud of the fact that you are a graduate of Syracuse Law School and that you were the Chairman or Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for 16 years.  We know how knowledgeable, respectful, and sensitive you are about the rule of law. Furthermore, you did solemnly swear as the president-elect on that glorious inauguration day that you would “preserve, protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.”  Yet, we are very astonished, Mr. President, that you disregarded at least four articles and amendments of the U.S. Constitution.  

    We believe that your April 24 statement is in conflict with basic principles of fairness in the U.S. Constitution. The first and second issues are related to the fundamental fairness principles, while the third and fourth issues specifically pertain to the “Due Process Rights” of Turkish Americans.

    The first issue concerns Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which makes international treaties ratified by the Senate a part of U.S. domestic law.  Here is a partial quote:

    “…This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding…”

    “Genocide”, an international crime, was coded by the “U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide,” approved and proposed for ratification in 1948 and entered into force in 1951. Türkiye became a party to this Convention in1950. This Convention regulates the crime of genocide in the domestic legal structure of the U.S. by being approved by the Senate on November 11, 1988, in accordance with Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. It became PUBLIC LAW 100-606 called the “Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987 (the Proxmire Act)”.  You, Mr. President, yourself sponsored the resolution that paved the way to this law.  

    According to this 1948 Convention, adopted by 140 states around the world and has the character of “jus cojens” (the compelling, overriding, unchallengeable rule) in law, in order for an act to be considered genocide, a competent tribunal must prove the material and moral elements of the crime (actus reus and mens rea) and, in particular, the crime must be determined to have been committed with special intent (dolus specialis.)  No such proceedings were instituted against the Ottoman Empire or its rulers, and no competent court ruled that the crime of genocide had been committed. In this case, your April 24 statement is clearly in conflict with both the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. domestic law, not to mention international law. 

     The second issue is the conflict with the “principle of legality” enshrined in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution. This section prohibits the adoption of “ex post facto laws” and their retroactive application.  Here is a partial quote:  

    “…No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed….”

    According to this article, an act that does not constitute a crime according to the law of the time it was committed does not constitute a crime by a subsequent law. “Genocide” did not exist in 1915 as a word or concept. It was first defined as a crime in the U.N. General Assembly document of December 11, 1946, and codified by the U.N. Genocide Convention adopted on December 9, 1948. The 1948 concept of genocide cannot be used retroactively to describe the events in 1915.  Therefore, Mr. President, your April 24 statement is undoubtedly contrary to the letter and spirit of section 9 of Article I of the U.S. Constitution.

    The third, and the most important, issue is the “Due Process Rights” of Turkish Americans, protected under the 5th and 14th Amendments in the U.S. Constitution – combining your third and fourth infringements. 

    The Constitution states only one command twice. The Fifth Amendment dictates to the federal government that no one shall be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, uses the very same words, called the Due Process Clause, to describe a legal obligation of all states. This means that the government must follow fair procedures and respect the legal rights of individuals before depriving them of their fundamental rights. Fourteenth Amendment applies this protection to the states and ensures that all individuals are entitled to due process of law, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or gender. In this case, we strongly believe, that the due process rights of Americans of Turkish origin were totally disregarded. We strongly disagree with your declaration as it is not based on historical facts and lacks any legal basis. We believe that your declaration was motivated solely to gain political popularity among the strong Armenian diaspora, while jeopardizing the safety and well-being of Turkish Americans in the United States.

    We are deeply concerned that your declaration, claiming the events of 1915 as Armenian Genocide, could negatively affect the fairness and impartiality of legal proceedings involving American citizens of Turkish and Armenian descent. It is important to note that the growing Turkish American community has become increasingly vocal about the facts of the 1915 events and aims to educate the public about the Turkish perspective, which has long been overshadowed by the one-sided and often fabricated narrative presented by the Armenian side.

    The growing visibility and public awareness of the true side of the History, as advanced by non-partisan scholars based on credible historical research, has unfortunately led to an increase in hate crimes and terrorism, victimizing Turkish Americans at the hands of Armenian radicals.  Your declaration may inadvertently encourage the perpetrators of these hate crimes and negatively impact the fairness and impartiality of legal proceedings against such suspects. Encouraged by your April 24 statement, Armenian racists inclined to avenge the alleged Armenian Genocide, threatened Turkish Americans, inflicted physical harm on them, and destroyed their property.  We are kindly asking, Mr. President, that you consider incidents of hate crimes and bullying against Turkish Americans, particularly in California, where a significant number of Armenians reside.

    As a community that values justice, fairness, and the principles of due process, we, the people of Turkish American heritage, request that you reconsider your declaration and take steps to promote a more balanced and accurate understanding of the events of 1915. We believe that all individuals, regardless of their ethnicity or background, deserve fair and impartial treatment under the law.

    Mr. President, you put forward the long-discredited political claim of Armenian genocide as an irrefutable fact, following up on your many similar statements during your 2020 election campaign.  Your statement, unfairly and untruthfully, stigmatized Turkish Americans as evil people who deserve to be punished.   What you have done with the April 24, 2022 statement is nothing less than “extrajudicial execution” in terms of the U.S. Constitution and domestic law.

    Your April 24 statement, Mr. President, is pedagogically unsound, as there are multiple reasons for doubting the Armenian Genocide thesis, including the absence of a court verdict. In addition, hostility towards viewpoints that dispute the Armenian Genocide thesis stifles open and honest discussion, represents viewpoint discrimination, and constitutes a further problem with the First Amendment.  

    Mr. President, your April 24 statement will cause academic freedom to be curtailed as it erroneously presumes that genocide occurred.  On the other hand, the work and research of many distinguished scholars have shown that these genocide claims are nothing more than fabrications and distortions of history. Among the many examples are the scholarly work and publications of professors Bernard Lewis of Princeton University, Gunter Lewy of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Justin McCarthy of the University of Louisville, which clearly demonstrated that such a crime did not occur. Dissenting views are educationally valuable, as they expose falsehoods, refine partial truths, and reinforce truths by battle-testing them.  But when your April 24 statement stops all that, education and truth suffer, prejudices and perceptions will continue to dominate.  

    Mr. President, we would like to remind you your own words: “…America is an idea. An idea that is stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It gives hope to the most desperate people on earth, it guarantees that everyone is treated with dignity and gives hate no safe harbor…”  We, the people of Turkish-American heritage, are not treated with dignity.  Unfortunately, your April 24 statement does give a safe harbor to hate and does not help build peace as our children are already being bullied in K-12 schools. 

    Most importantly, we are kindly asking you, Mr. President, that you support the initiative by the republics of Türkiye and Armenia to establish a Joint Historical Commission, composed of historians and legal scholars to be selected by Ankara and Erivan. We hope you will contribute earnestly to the realization of this initiative.  

    For this to work, of course, all national archives must be fully open to research.  While Ottoman and Turkish archives are fully open to international research since 1980s, Armenian archives remain closed to scholars critical of genocide claims.

    This is the only way to end this ethno-religious bias and discrimination against Turkish-Americans by those influenced by crude stereotypes of genocide claims that are rooted, in large part, in the deliberate wartime propaganda efforts of the World War I Allies.  

    Mr. President, a Turkish-Armenian Joint Historical Commission to investigate the genocide claims may be the only frank, honest, ethical, logical, and effective way forward.  We believe research and dialogue, not stereotyping and defamation, can build the way to peace, reconciliation, and closure.  

    Respectfully,

    Mazlum Kosma
    President

    Dr. Bulent Basol
    Chairman of the Board of Trustees

    Prof. Dr. Ulku Ulgur
    The Founding President

    Ergun Kirlikovali
    Past President

  • ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS OWE THEIR LIFE TO TÜRKS

    ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS OWE THEIR LIFE TO TÜRKS

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    LET THE ARMENIANS AND PRESIDENT BIDEN KNOW THE FOLLOWING FACTS……

    Turkish News

    · In 1452 Vatican with its status quo had brought the Orthodox Christianity at the stage of extinction. The Christian pope in that era was applying genocide to orthodox people by saying either you become catholic or to be extinction. During that era the Ottoman Empire had prevented the orthodox Christians’ sweeping from history by conquer of istanbul. Because of this fact the clerics of that era had greeted the Ottomans with respect. The closed orthodox churches with the order of Vatican had been reopened. The current biggest orthodox patriarchate namely the Eastern Greek Orthodox Church had reestablished. All orthodox communities had been saved from genocide by this way. The saved communities were as follows;The Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, The Orthodox Gagavuz Turks, Lezgin Turks… and the other orthodoxes which we don’t know the names of them. Those communities whose describing the ottomans as genociders owe all their existence to Ottomans. Whereas the Ottomans had not saved those orthodox communities from extinction there would not be no Greek and Armenian communities that claim the ottomans applied genocide.

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