Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

[alpnoyan]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

Kurdish genocide against ARMENİANS <---fallow this topic at--> http://www.turkish-media.com/forum/i...7&#entry745327

U cannot imagine how a wild people thy are...U need to search this at british dokuments and many alike this resources.Such a those reports ll lead us to find the real killers....They r still killing...

Remember this when usa involved ıraq one of the peshmerge (kurdish soldier)
was wearing fylfot helmet...what he was want to explane us?

İ ll try to translate english -italy-and greeks dokuments back to english.
(realy sory i cant speak armenian language)

Also u ll see we are tolkin this problem in turkey we have no any bad idea about armenian people.So if thy were killed whe should being sory....
Why u arent wondered if genocide true how , where an whom did it.

[alpnoyan]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

we didn't armenian genocide but, we murdered to Hrant Dink heheeheh ...
but we did genocide north Iraq to Iraqi Kurdish heheheheh
YOU ARE AMERİCA'S ADULATORS you are blackguard
The Turks are not never genocide,this is your lie...

I hate america,armenia(n) and greek.

Omg! u r psyco!
U need to be human
its shamefull also u arent Turk

[hipeter924]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/2363216/Thousands-of-Armenians-mourn-genocide

Thousands of Armenians mourn genocide
AP

Tens of thousands of Armenians marched through the capital on Friday to commemorate the 94th anniversary of the start of mass killings by Ottoman Turks, many calling on Turkey to recognise the slayings as genocide.

Armenia and Turkey said Thursday they are close to restoring full relations and reopening their border after 15 years. But neither side has indicated how they might resolve the dispute over the killings that US President Barack Obama on Friday referred to as one of the 20th century's "greatest atrocities."

Throngs marched through the Armenian capital, Yerevan, with torches and candles to mark the anniversary of the rounding-up of a few hundred Armenian intellectuals in what was then known as Constantinople – present-day Istanbul – by Ottoman authorities. Their arrest was swiftly followed by the military's forced evacuation of ordinary Armenians from their homes in actions that spiraled into the mass slaughter of the Armenian population.

Armenia says up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Turks in what was then the Ottoman Empire, while Turkey says the killings occurred at a time of civil conflict and that the casualty figures are inflated. Scholars widely view the event as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Obama, who had referred to the "Armenian genocide" during his presidential campaign, on Friday omitted the term, referring instead to the event as the "one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century." He also refrained from using the term genocide during a recent visit to Turkey, saying only that his views were on the record.

The United States is known to be cautious on the issue while Turkey and Armenia repair their relations.

Friday's procession began with a burning of Turkish flags, and many carried placards blaming Turkey for spilling the "blood of millions" and calling on Ankara to acknowledge the killings as genocide.

It ended in central Yerevan at a monument to the victims of the killings, and a liturgy was served at churches throughout the country.

"Crimes against humanity don't expire in the memory of nations," Armenian President Serge Sarkisian said in a statement. "International recognition and condemnation of the Armenian genocide. . . is a matter of restoring historic justice."

The procession, led by nationalist groups, is an annual event and is not expected to affect the reconciliation process.

The two countries also differ over Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region, controlled by Armenia after a six-year war that broke out in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Turkey – which shares close cultural and linguistic relations with Azerbaijan wants it to absorb region – insists its talks with Armenia proceed in parallel with Armenian-Azeri discussions.

The US and EU have urged Turkey and Armenia to resolve their differences.

[Kiffer]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

The problem cannot be resolved, as the Karabakh wants the world
recognize its right to self-determination, as is has been allowed to
some other countries. And Azerbaidjan declares its right to integrity of its territory.

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

Did anyone else read this article?

Sassounian: Revealing Genocide Documents Found in Ottoman Archives
By Harut Sassounian • on August 11, 2009

It is a known fact that numerous documents on the Armenian Genocide were either destroyed or hidden away by the Turkish government. Determined researchers, however, can still discover materials in the Ottoman archives that shed light on important events and personalities of that tragic period.
In recent years, the Turkish government has selectively published some of the more innocuous Ottoman documents in order to counter criticism that it was concealing incriminating evidence on the Armenian Genocide. Millions of other documents, however, still remain inaccessible to the general public because researchers have to go to Istanbul and request a particular document by its file number, and pay a processing fee. Even if the documents are obtained, few people within and outside Turkey can read and comprehend them, as they are written in Ottoman Turkish and difficult to decipher Arabic script.
The California Courier was recently able to obtain from the Ottoman archives important documents regarding the tragic fate of prominent ARF (Dashnak) activist E. Agnouni, who was born around 1865 in Meghri, Armenia. He studied at the University of Geneva and was active in Armenian political movements in Georgia, Russia, and France. In 1904, while in Paris, Agnouni supported the efforts of the Young Turk Party to overthrow Sultan Abdul Hamid. After returning to Constantinople (Istanbul), he actively participated in the Young Turk revolution of 1908. He then toured the Armenian communities of Europe and the United States. Agnouni was arrested in Istanbul on April 24, 1915—along with hundreds of prominent Armenians—and subsequently murdered.
Prior to his arrest, Agnouni had written a heart-wrenching commentary, published in the April 16, 1915 issue of Asbarez, the Armenian-language newspaper in Fresno. The article described disturbing scenes of Armenian soldiers fighting each other in the armies of their respective countries—Russia and the Ottoman Empire. In his article, Agnouni urged Armenian Americans to come to the aid of their suffering compatriots back home.
Not surprisingly, the Ottoman government had kept track of Agnouni’s every move. This was evidenced by our recent discovery in the Istanbul archives of the Turkish translation of his 1915 article. The translator was an Armenian official named Artin who worked for the Turkish government as a “censor of Armenian newspapers.”
Censor Artin added the following revealing note: “This translated article belongs to E. Agnouni. He is a member of the Dashnak Party. His real name is Khachadour Maloumian. He is a citizen of Russia. He came to Istanbul during the war and until recently did not do any work other than carrying out propaganda for his party. During his residence here, he made one or two trips to Europe. He is part of the last group that was deported and exiled.”
Bishop Krikoris Balakian, who was among those rounded up by the Turkish government on April 24, 1915, narrated the following bone-chilling episode about Agnouni’s arrest in his monumental two-volume memoir titled Hay Koghkota (Armenian Golgotha). When Turkish police officers came to his house to arrest him, Agnouni asked in a state of shock: “Does Talat know about this?” Agnouni was completely dumb-founded when the officers showed him Talat’s signature on his arrest warrant. He asked: “I just had lunch with Talat—how come he did not say anything to me?”
Agnouni was stunned by his arrest because he could not believe that Talat would betray him after he had saved his life during the Young Turk revolution of 1908, by hiding him in his own home at the risk of his own life. According to Balakian, when Agnouni finally realized that he was being led to his death, he told his fellow prisoners: “I don’t regret dying, since I knew that death was inevitable. My only regret is that we were deceived by these Turkish villains.” Balakian expressed his deep regret that the Armenians who had put their trust in Turks realized their mistake too late–when they were on their way to their deaths!
Several new documents just obtained from the Ottoman archives reveal for the first time that the King of Spain made repeated efforts to obtain the release of Agnouni, Daniel Varoujan, Siamanto, and other prominent Armenians. It is not known what prompted the Spanish king to involve himself in such a humanitarian endeavor.
In two letters dated April 24, 1916, and May 10, 1916, Spain’s Ambassador Julian del Arroyo wrote to Turkey’s Foreign Minister Halil Bey, advising him that His Majesty King Alfonso XIII was asking Sultan Mehmed V to spare the lives of the above-named Armenian prisoners. Regrettably, unbeknown to the Spanish king, these Armenians had been killed long before his praiseworthy intervention.
Several recently obtained confidential memos between various Turkish officials indicate that Interior Minister Talat finally made up a fake story about the fate of these prominent Armenians. Talat wrote to Halil Bey on July 25, 1916, asking him to advise the Spanish ambassador that the Armenians in question, while being led to the Diyarbekir Military Court, had overcome their guards and escaped to Russia. Talat concealed the fact that the Armenian prisoners had been killed months before the Spanish king’s inquiry. This episode demonstrates that Talat was covering up his crimes as he was committing them!
Reading these newly discovered memos written by Turkish leaders leaves no doubt that the Armenian Genocide was centrally planned and executed. Talat ordered the deportation and execution of Armenians and demanded detailed reports on their movements and conditions. In some instances, Talat personally wrote letters inquiring about the whereabouts of several prominent Armenians.
Despite all attempts to purge incriminating documents, ample evidence of Turkish complicity in the Armenian Genocide still remains in the Ottoman archives.

http://www.hairenik.com/weekly/2009/08/11/sassounian-revealing-genocide-documents-found-in-ottoman-archives/

[Alexandros]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

Interesting article.Thanks for posting ninetoyadome.

[may]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

Interesting article.Thanks for posting ninetoyadome.

Very interesting indeed...

Brilliant start for an article tries to "scientifically prove" some claims: "It is a known fact that numerous documents on the Armenian Genocide were either destroyed or hidden away by the Turkish government"

Archive legend: "Even if the documents are obtained, few people within and outside Turkey can read and comprehend them, as they are written in Ottoman Turkish and difficult to decipher Arabic script."

Ottoman Turkish and Arabic scripts are not ancient cave inscriptions. All history students in Turkey learn it at undergrad, there are courses offered even in US for the interested, if not learned from numerous books for people who really want to learn it. And come on, all this effort to obtain these impossible-to-reach-if-not-destroyed-yet archives but cannot do anything because few people(!!!) can read it?

Then some references in between to letters and memoirs without any other archieve reference # or picture...

And then the conclusion: "Reading these newly discovered memos written by Turkish leaders leaves no doubt that the Armenian Genocide was centrally planned and executed"

Doubt? Who said doubt? It is obvious from the beginning... then, what/who is this article for?

[Alexandros]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

Very interesting indeed...

Brilliant start for an article tries to "scientifically prove" some claims: "It is a known fact that numerous documents on the Armenian Genocide were either destroyed or hidden away by the Turkish government"

Archive legend: "Even if the documents are obtained, few people within and outside Turkey can read and comprehend them, as they are written in Ottoman Turkish and difficult to decipher Arabic script."

Ottoman Turkish and Arabic scripts are not ancient cave inscriptions. All history students in Turkey learn it at undergrad, there are courses offered even in US for the interested, if not learned from numerous books for people who really want to learn it. And come on, all this effort to obtain these impossible-to-reach-if-not-destroyed-yet archives but cannot do anything because few people(!!!) can read it

So what do you have to say about Orhan Kemal Cengiz` article(published 21 August 2009, Friday):

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/columnists-184616-was-it-genocide-or-a-revolution.html

P.S. May, why this sarcasm?I didn`t even "attack" or let alone reply you in this thread?

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

here is an interesting article

Gunaysu: Turkish Perception of the Recent US Court Ruling
By Ayse Gunaysu •

on August 27, 2009 •
Among thousands of news items showering down from international agencies, none of the Turkish dailies or TV channels skipped the news about a U.S. Federal Court of Appeals ruling against Armenian demands for unpaid insurance claims. Many headlines revealed a hardly concealed note of victory, reporting that the U.S. Court had dealt a “big blow” to Armenians. Some of them were a little bit more professional, reflecting only a satisfaction: “Court decision to anger Armenians.” Even the most seemingly “objective” ones used wording that presented the issue as a defeat on the part of the “Armenians” —not a violation of the rights of legitimate beneficiaries, the clients of insurance companies that profited from a government’s extermination of its own citizens. Even the daily Taraf, considered to be waging the most courageous struggle against the “deep state,” used the headline: “Bad news to Armenians from a US court” (Aug. 22, 2009, p.3), a headline that, intentionally or not, reinforces the essentialist conception of Armenians widespread in Turkey and reflects a cold-hearted pseudo-impartiality —“bad news”!—in the face of an infuriating usurpation of one’s rights.

Apart from a handful of people, no one in Turkey, watching the news or reading the headlines (often without reading the full texts), knows that at the turn of the century several thousands of Armenians in the provinces of the old Armenia were issued life-insurance policies, with benefits amounting to more than $20 million in 1915—dollars still unpaid to the legal heirs of the victims who perished under a reign of terror. This is not surprising because this audience is even ignorant of the fact that on the eve of World War I, there were 2,925 Armenian settlements in the old Armenia, with 1,996 schools teaching over 173,000 male and female students, and 2,538 churches and monasteries—all proof of a vibrant Armenian presence in the Ottoman Empire. When I tried to explain this to my 83-year-old mother, who thought the U.S. court had done something good for Turkey, she couldn’t believe her ears. She was quite sincere when she asked: “Western insurance companies? At that time? In Harput, in Merzifon, in Kayseri? Are you sure?” Because she could not even imagine that what is now to us the remote, less-developed cities with rural environs where pre-capitalist patterns still prevail—places more or less isolated from today’s metropolitan centers—were once, before 1915, rich and developed urban centers, with inhabitants much closer to the Western world than their fellow Muslim citizens, in their economic activities, social structure, and way of life. Although a university graduate (something unusual for a woman in Turkey at that time), a person of culture with a real sense of justice in everything she does, my mother was brought up in a system of education based on a history that was rewritten to reconstruct a national identity of pride, and which turned facts upside down. This was the result: an “enlightened” individual who knew nothing about how things were in her own—beloved—country and what had happened just a decade before her birth.

So, how can one expect my mother to know that Talat Pasha, a member of the PUC triumvira and one of the top organizers of the Armenian Genocide, had shocked Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Istanbul in 1915, with his audacity when he said: “I wish, that you would get the American life insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the state. The government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?”

The Turkish audience, apart from that handful of people, that received the message about the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling against the Armenians’ right to seek justice, didn’t stop to think that this was something about one’s most basic rights.

But the reason is simple: National ideology blocks people’s minds. There is a special meaning attributed to the word “compensation” in Turkey. It is believed that recognition will be followed by demands of compensation, which will naturally lead to demands of territory. So, the reference to “compensation” (to be paid to “Armenians”) in these reports is directly connected in their minds to Armenians’ claim to territory.

This is all about denial. Denial is not an isolated phenomenon, not a policy independent of all other aspects. Denial is a system. An integrated whole. You don’t only deny what really happened; in order to deny what really happened, you have to deny even the existence of the people to whom it happened. In order to deny their existence, you have to wipe out the evidence of their existence from both the physical and intellectual environment. Physical refers to the 2,925 Armenian settlements with 1,996 schools and 2,538 churches and monasteries that are non-existent now. Intellectual corresponds to my mother’s perception of the U.S. Court of Appeal’s ruling as something good for Turkey.

I watched a film on TV tonight, Akira Kurosawa’s “Rhapsody in August,” a film about an old lady, a hibakusha (the Japanese word for the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II) and her four grandchildren. Watching the film, I saw people commemorating their dead ones with great respect, taking care of their monuments with endless love, raising their children in the same spirit, observing Buddhist rituals, praying for their losses. The details showing all these were elegantly and very impressively depicted. Watching a blind hibakusha gently cleaning the marble platform of the monument with great care, I thought of Armenians of my country, who are deprived of this very basic right to publicly honor the memory of their lost ones. This ban is woven into the very structure of Turkish society, because the founders of the new Turkish Republic and their successors built a nation and successfully put into practice an “engineering of the spirit” whereby the people are convinced, made to sincerely believe, that such commemorations are a direct insult to themselves.

The outcome of such engineering, this whole complicated system of denial, is very difficult to dismantle. The Turkish ruling elite will not recognize the genocide, not in the short-term, not in the mid-term. In the long-term, maybe. But how “long” a term this will be is something unknown. The dynamic that would step up the process is the recognition from below, i.e. recognition by the people—a very slow process, but much more promising than an official recognition in the foreseeable future. People in Turkey are one by one going through a very special kind of enlightenment—meeting with facts, learning more about the near history, getting into closer contact with Armenians here and elsewhere (for example, meeting and listening to Prof. Marc Nichanian speaking in the language of philosophy and literature, hearing his words about how meaningless an apology is when what happened to Armenians was “unforgivable,” about the meaning of the “usurpation of mourning” and the “impossibility of representation” of what Armenians experienced. More and more stories are appearing in the dailies and periodicals in Turkey of our grandmothers and grandfathers of Armenian origin who were stripped of their Armenian identities, at least in the public sphere. More and more books are being published about the genocide, enabling the readers to try and imagine what is unimaginable.

This will turn the wheels of a long process of recognition from below, a recognition in the hearts of people that will inevitably interact with the process of official recognition—a must for true justice—no matter how distant it may be for the time being.

http://www.hyetert.com/haber3.asp?Id=32965&DilId=1

[may]

Re: Armenian Genocide in the news. Recent and noteworthy articles and news.

So what do you have to say about Orhan Kemal Cengiz` article(published 21 August 2009, Friday):

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/columnists-184616-was-it-genocide-or-a-revolution.html

P.S. May, why this sarcasm?I didn`t even "attack" or let alone reply you in this thread?

Alexandros, I had no intention to attack personally you. It was my first post under this tread. Such propaganda articles always annoy me, from whichever side it comes. And if something is anti-Turkish, it is looooved in this forum without any questioning. People at least should be able to distinguish a bad article from a good one regardless of what it says. Sassounian's article is fail-safe, no matter how bad he writes, he is still be applauded and this annoys me. A lot of people gain so much power/political benefit from AG issue, which I feel showing disrespect for the dead as much as the ones in Turkish side. Sassounian could be that kind or not, but this article is a really bad one, just fills a gap in his column, that's all. People should demand better work. Some good work examples can be Gunaysu's articles that you post under another tread and the one ninetoyadome's post above - agree or not it is well written (sad that s/he also post the other one as well)

Regarding the article you sent: The issues raised in the article are so cliche that even high school teachers in national education system can raise. I am not saying they are not true or meaningless, but the fact is that they have nothing to do with scholar attitude of learning Ottoman Turkish and script for achieve studies. The fact is that after language revolution during Republic, the ties of Turkish language with long standing influences with Arabic and Persian were cut. This caused a communication breakdown between two generations; grandchildren had to ask what exactly her/his grandparent said. The language stayed more intact for law and similar issues due to its historical and institutional basis, however in daily life the language was crippled for the sake of purifying it to be more Turkish. Briefly, the points are well-taken, but nothing new, actually so much cliche involved.

And a side note: Turk Dil Kurumu - TDK (which could roughly be translated as Turkish Language Institution) used to be the main actor of purifying Turkish by kicking out non-Turkish origined words from the language and replace them with new Turkish words. Actually, they have found pretty good counterparts for some words that are still used, but still the points raised by Cengiz are still valid. On the other hand, hard-core conservatists blaim Ataturk to appoint Armenian people in this institution who "ruined" the language. Agop Martayan was appointed to TDK as the general secretary by Ataturk's invitation and given the surname Dilacar (again a rough translation: language-developer). Sounds odd right?