Part 2: To Unlearn on Armenian Allegations
by Uluç GÜRKAN, Former Deputy of Turkish Grand Assembly
(This is part 2 of 3) |
Part 1 of 3: 21st CENTURY ENLIGHTENMENT: On the Armenian Issue
Those who accuse Turkey of being guilty of genocide, either by mistake or on purpose, are trying to move around these major international requirements.
1. The Armenian “genocide lobby” tries to create a widespread impression that there is a general international consensus characterizing the 1915 events as genocide. This is not true. There is no such consensus which would mean ultimate acceptance of the genocide allegations. Out of a total of 190 states, there are only 32 that recognize the Armenian genocide.
2. Despite what Armenian diaspora and their supporters claim, there is no real document which proves that the Ottoman authorities intended to destroy Armenians. Those Armenians mostly living in western Anatolıa who were seen no thread to Ottoman supply lines and security were not relocated in 1915.
3. Moreover, there is no national or international court ruling characterizing the 1915 events as genocide. Yet, Armenian diaspora and their supporters accuse Turkey of genocide. Without a fair judicial trial genocide accusation through a personal or legislative decision is an analogous to politicize history.
4. Although it is clearly emphasized by the Genocide Convention that genocide can be processed by real persons, Armenian genocide allegations, particularly legislative body resolutions declaring Armenian genocide, are usually levelled towards Turkey and the Turkish nation. Not only to Ottoman officials of the time, but all Turks who were not even born then are accused as being mass-murderer.
Hate Speech
The Armenian claims without judicial edict gains characteristic of hate speech against Turkish nation.
Hate speech is defined by United Nation’s as “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.”
In many instances, hate speech is usually directed at a specific race, religion, or gender. But it has also been directed at individuals or groups because of sexual orientation, ethnicity, or other group membership.
There can be specific negative effects of hate speech. Hate-motivated violence is the most serious effect. The Cambridge Dictionary underlines this violence effect of hate speech as follows: “Public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.”
Hate speech, especially if left unaddressed, can lead to acts of violence and conflict on a wider scale. In this sense, it can spread seeds of intolerance and anger that contributes to hate crime.
Criminal Prohibition
There has been much debate over hate speech legislation.
The international community, in due course has also agreed to certain limitations –such as on speech which advocates “national, racial or religious hatred” and “constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a multilateral treaty adopted by United Nations General Assembly on 1966, and in force from 23 March 1976 stated that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence shall be prohibited by law.” The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) also specified that “criminal prohibition is necessary when hate speech publicly incites violence against individuals or groups of people.”
Although the world is widely aware of the dangerous link between hate speech and violence, hate speech is still theoretically subject to international prosecution. There is no international legal definition of hate speech.
Consequently, it is extremely important for national governments to establish sound legal frameworks on hate speech which hold perpetrators accountable, uphold human dignity, while still balancing the right to freedom of expression.
In some countries, there are laws meant to protect human dignity. In some others, the laws are designed to protect public order. Additionally, there are several countries where hate speech is not a legal term. In these countries, victims of hate speech may seek redress under civil law, criminal law, or both.
Since the intent is to protect either the human dignity or public order, even where there are national hate speech laws, they require that a high threshold be violated, so they are not often enforced.
Double Standard
Moreover, the Armenian allegations language that turns real persons to Turkish nationality as perpetrators of genocide is a double standard – a double standard that occurs in the context of racial and religious prejudices.
As a matter of fact, for the Holocaust in the Second World War Germany or the German people are not blamed on any grounds. Hitler and other Nazi leaders are accused as individuals and the Nazis as powers of government. In addition to the “Jewish massacre” on which the word “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944, it can be clearly seen in the current examples of Rwanda, Sudan and Bosnia-Herzegovina that for the actions which can be defined as “genocide,” the criminal responsibility is directed against real persons, not on nationalities.
For example, for war crimes in Sudan not Sudan or Sudanese, but Al-Bashir himself has been accused. In the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia under the UN Genocide Convention, only “real persons” accused of “genocide” was tried. As perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre, not the Serbian nation, but the Serbian leaders and some of their commanders were held responsible and punished.
This important judicial clause is discounted when the debate is on the “Armenian genocide” allegations. Instead of real persons, illegally Turkey and Turkish nation is portrayed as the target.
Double standards should not guide and lead us. We must overcome our judicial double standards especially in the context of religious intolerances and eliminate all our discriminatory racial hatreds.
Part 3 – To Relearn
The Armenian allegation of genocide fails the minimum standards of proof required by the 1948 UN Genocide Convention cited above. It is made without a court edict and are unaddressed. No individual real person is pointed to be charged with crime of genocide, but Turkey and Turkish nation is targeted discriminately.
Even when “Armenian genocide “ is invoked in a debate without identifying the perpetrator of the crime as a real person or persons but simply citing Turkey as a country or Turks as people, that besides being illegal, it is a discriminatory language that arises mainly within the context of racial and religious prejudices.
Without a court edict, such a discriminatory language is the legitimization of religious based racist hate speech. Even if not turned to violence, it may trigger feelings of hostility towards Turkey and Turkish people. This is a crime not only against Turkey and Turkish people, but also a serious crime against humanity.
One Side of the Story
In addition, particularly religious based prejudices have turned the Armenian allegations to some sort of a one-sided pro-Christian story.
Armenians indeed suffered a terrible mortality. Beginning in late 1914, World War I was doubtlessly a painful period for Ottoman Armenians. It created many victims.
Even though it was a war-time tragedy and a military self-defense precaution to head off an uprising against the Ottoman state, relocation (sometimes cited as deportation erroneously, because Syria, the place where the Armenians were sent away from the war zones in the then Ottoman Empire) was doubtlessly a painful period for Ottoman Armenians. Undoubtedly, the war created many victims.
One-sided pro-Christian story claims that, beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire by Turks.
Although the figures reporting the total pre-World War I Armenian population vary widely, demographic studies prove that prior to World War I fewer than 1,5 million Armenians lived in the entire Ottoman Empire. British, French and Ottoman sources give figures of 1,05-1,50 million. Only certain American and off-cited Armenian sources claim a pre-war population larger than 1.5 million.
Thus, allegations that 1,5 million Armenians from Eastern Anatolia died should be viewed as grossly untrue.
Moreover, post-war figures of Armenians living also clearly proves that a great portion of the Ottoman Armenians were not killed as claimed. Boghos Nubar, the President of the Armenian National Assembly and head of the Armenian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919-1920, declared that some 600.000 to 700.000 Armenians were relocated from Anatolia. And after the war 280,000 Armenians remained in the Anatolian portion of the occupied Ottoman Empire while hundred thousand of Armenians had emigrated to other countries.
Besides war-induced causes and intercommunal conflict perpetrated by both Christian and Muslim irregular forces, the totality of documents of the time thus far uncovered by historians verify that during the Armenians relocation to Syria [an Ottoman province at that time] hundreds of thousands of Armenians have died on account of disease, famine, and many other of war’s miseries.
With this, even if the fabrications about the Armenian losses are corrected, the revised numbers will not tell us the exact manner of death of the citizens of Anatolia, regardless of ethnicity, who were caught up in both an international war and an intercommunal struggle instigated by the Dashnaks – the group from which today’s active Armenian Revolutionary Front (ARF) was born, aiding and abetting the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), killing more than 42 Turkish diplomats and their families as recent as in the nineteen-eighties and still promoting such dastardly acts against Turks and their families even today.
Additionally, the corrected numbers will not be the complete story of the 1915 events. Truth demands every side of the story to be told. If only one side of the tragedy is to be accepted while the other side will be mentioned as perpetrators of the same tragedy, this is an extra example of racial and religious discrimination of double standard.
Each needless death, either Christian, Jews or Muslim, is a tragedy. Equally tragic are double standards designed to inflame discrimination and provoke hatred.
The statistics tell us that more than nearly 1,1 million Anatolian Muslims (Turks, Kurds) and Jews also perished because of the same war-induced causes that damaged all peoples during the period. Though the evidence for this is overwhelming, the legislative decisions of several countries about the story mention only Christian deaths.
What happened during this period cannot be considered solely the grief of the Armenians who were harmed. It is the grief of all Anatolian people, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim.
The years 1914-1919 constitute a horrible “war time tragedy” for humanity. Therefore, the pain of Anatolia triggered by the World War I of that period, should be shared and, when required, mourned together.
Armenian Armed Rebellion
In August 1914, following Germany’s declaration of war against Russia, Volunteer Units were established under the Russian Caucasus Army. They were primarily composed of Armenians from the Russian Empire, though there were also Armenians from Ottoman Eastern Anatolia.
In November 1914, when Russia declared war to Ottoman State, these well-equipped and trained volunteer units advanced into Ottoman territory together with Russian forces.
Boghos Nubar, the president of the Armenian National Assembly, declared to Paris Conference that the volunteers fighting against Turks were around 150,000 Armenians who were regular soldiers served in the Russian and near 50,000 fighters under the command of irregular Armenian military leaders.
Russian forces had the position of advantage and control at the front. Ottoman forces based in Eastern Anatolia were 126,000 men. Many were poorly equipped to defend a line of more than 600 kilometres. They had only 74,057 rifles, 77 machine guns, and 180 pieces of artillery. The Battle of Gallipoli was draining all Ottoman resource.
Within a few months after the war began, the Ottoman Armenians refused to serve their constituted authority and took the side of Russians. Thousands of Armenian soldiers deserted the Ottoman armies and joined the invading Russian Army. Additionally, behind the battle lines numerous Armenian bands were formed to fight a guerrilla war against Turks.
By the beginning of 1915 thousands of Armenians were fighting behind the lines. These rebellious Armenians, operating in close coordination with the Russians, were working to sabotage the Ottoman army’s war effort by raiding supply depots, destroying roads and bridges, attacking caravans, to ease the Russian occupation.
In April 1915, the Russian armies launched an offensive against Van, in the east, and the Allied troops landed on Gallipoli peninsula, in the west. At that critical moment, on May 27, 1915, the Ottoman Government ordered to remove insurgent rebellious Armenian minority from the war zones along the Eastern Front to the to the Syrian province of the Ottoman State.
Armenian rebellion was a factual threat to the Ottoman State, both on the battle front and behind the lines. Apart from Caucasus, Armenians, for the cause of Entente, have been on the side of the Allies on all fronts.
Armenian volunteers have fought as members of the colonizing French Legions. More than 5,000 Armenians comprised more than half of the French Legion in Palestine. Armenian volunteers also helped the English military forces in Mesopotamia by preventing the Germans and Turks from sending their own soldiers to the other war zones.
Taking into consideration all these points, the then Armenian Republic have been recognized as an established Allied Power of the war against the Ottoman State in the Treaty of Sevres (Section VI “Armenia”, Articles 88-93) Article 89 ot the treaty signed between the Allies of World War I and the Ottoman Empire was as follows:
“Turkey and Armenia, as well as the other High Contracting Parties agree to submit to the arbitration of the President of the United States of America the question of the frontier to be fixed between Turkey and Armenia in the vilayets of Erzerum, Trebizond, Van and Bitlis, and to accept his decision thereupon, as well as any stipulations he may prescribe as to access for Armenia to the sea, and as to the demilitarisation of any portion of Turkish territory adjacent to the said frontier.”
War Tragedy
Eminent historian Professor Bernard Lewis, author of dozens of books on Turkey, Islam, and the Middle East, declares that what happened was a “war time tragedy”, not genocide:
“(It) was the result of a massive Armenian armed rebellion against the Turks, which began even before war broke out, and continued on a larger scale. Great numbers of Armenians, including members of the armed forces, deserted, crossed the frontier, and joined the Russian forces invading Turkey… There was guerrilla warfare all over Anatolia…
There is clear evidence of a decision by the Turkish Government, to deport the Armenian population from the sensitive areas… There is no evidence of a decision to massacre… On the contrary, there is considerable evidence of attempt to prevent it… The massacres were carried out by irregulars, by local villagers responding to what had been done to them… But to make this, a parallel with the holocaust in Germany, you would have to assume the Jews of Germany had been engaged in an armed rebellion against the German state, collaborating with the allies against Germany… This seems to me a rather absurd parallel.”
League of Nations “Note Verbal”
A League of National archival document supports Professor Lewis’s point of view.
On March 1, 1920, the “note verbal” released by Sir Eric Drummond, Secretary General of the League, British politician, and diplomat, declared that “in Turkey, minorities were often oppressed, and massacres carried out by irregular bands who were entirely outside the control of the Central Turkish Government”. This “note verbal” also completely verify that the Ottoman government had no intention to exterminate the Armenians.
1915-1916 Ottoman Court-Martials
Additionally, Ottoman court-martials of 1915-1916 historically prove that Armenian relocation was not a planned march to death.
1,673 Ottoman subjects, 975 civilian bandits from irregular bands, together with 528 government officials and 170 local officials, accused of alleged crimes against the Armenians during the relocation of 1915 were put on trial and sentenced by the Ottoman 1915-1916 court-martials.
Can you think of a government planning a relocation for the destruction of the Armenians, and yet conducting trials and sentencing hundreds of its citizens and officials for ill treatment to the Armenians while the war is going on?
It is illogical.
Deportation: A Military Precaution
Besides Ottoman archives, American British, French, Russian and League of Nation’s American archived documents confirm that the Ottoman government did not intend to exterminate the Armenians. The 1915 war-time decision on the relocation was since the Armenian armed rebellion and cooperation with the invading Russian army, thanks to the Dashnaks, the forebearers of today’s ANCA.
Professor of Military History Edward Ericson’s carefully researched study “Ottomans and Armenians” provides irrefutable evidence that the sole motive of the Ottoman military command in recommending that the relocation of Armenians in 1915 was the threat to the war effort from Armenian insurgent groups mobilized with the support of Russia.
The relocation, planned as a military precaution to head off an Armenian uprising against the Ottoman state with volunteer troops on the battlefield and gangs behind military lines, during the Russian occupation of Eastern Anatolia, created many victims.
“It was self-defense for the Turks” says Professor Ericson and adds: “The Ottoman Government had every right to protect the lives of their Muslim subjects who constituted the majority of the population in the areas selected for declaration of their autonomous state of Armenia.”
Katchaznouni’s Confession
Hovannes Katchaznouni, the first Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic is the eyewitness of both Professor Lewis and Professor Ericson.
Katchaznouni’s report to the 1923 ARF (Armenian Revolutionary Federation) Congress refutes the grandiose, exaggerated and even outrageously false claims the Armenian Genocide lobbies. In his report Katchaznouni underlines that during the World War I, for colluding with the Russians, Armenians rebelled against the Ottoman Empire and were at war with the Turks with whom they lived in peace and harmony for centuries down the street from each other:
“The Winter of 1914 and the spring of 1915 were the periods of greatest enthusiasm and hope for all the Armenians in the Caucasus… We had no doubt the war would end with the complete victory of the Allies; Turkey would be defeated and dismembered, and its Armenian population would at last be liberated.”
As well, Armenian armed rebellion was confessed by many other Armenian activists. Gatrekin Pastermadjian in his book titled “Why Armenia Should be Free” wrote as follows:
“…purpose of the writer in writing this booklet, is to make great American people realize that Armenians are not anemic and unaggressive people with no fighting blood in their veins; that the Armenians have not been butchered like sheep but on the contrary, have fought most bravely and resisted most stubbornly the savage attacks of the Turks, whenever they had an opportunity”.
“The Armenian reservists, about 160.000 in the number gladly responded to the call for the simple reason that they were to fight the arch enemy of their historic race! Besides regular soldiers, nearly 20.000 volunteers expressed their readiness to take up arms against the Turk.”
“Opposite Sarikamish, where a battle was waged for three days and nights, the Turks suffered a loss of 30.000 men, mostly due to the cold weather than to the Russian arms… This was invaluable service rendered to the Russian army by the fourth battalion of the Armenian volunteers under the command of matchless Keri. Six hundred Armenian veterans fell in the Barduz Pass, and at such a high price saved 60.000 Russians from being taken prisoners by the Turks.”
“…those few battalions of Armenian volunteers in 1914 and 1915, rendered to the Russians invaluable services, twice saving the right and left wings of the Russian army from an unavoidable catastrophe…”
Allied Powers Provocations
An achieve document that comes from League of Nations clarifies the then war-tragedy and opens a new episode to answer the painful question of Prof. Bernard Lewis, “what happened to Armenians during World War I…”
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen, a Norwegian explorer, gained prominence at various points in his life as scientist, diplomat and humanitarian. Following his appointment in 1921 as the League’s High Commissioner for Refugees, he devoted himself primarily to the League of Nations. He was awarded in 1938 the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of the displaced victims of World War I.
On September 21, 1921, while presenting a plan to the General Assembly for the establishment of a national home for Armenian refuges, he pointed that Armenians were provoked by Allied Powers to fight against Turks and two hundred thousand of them lost their lives in war for the cause of Entente:
“During the war, when the Armenians were driven out of Asia Minor…, the Allied Western Powers said to the Armenians ‘if you fight with us against the Turks, and if the war ends successfully for us, we promise you to give you a national home, liberty and independence.’ The Armenians fought for the Allied Powers. Two hundred thousand volunteers sacrificed their lives for the cause of Entente; but when the Armistice was signed and peace concluded, the promise given to the Armenians was forgotten…”
Nobel Peace Prize laureate League of Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees reminds that two hundred thousand Armenians provoked to fight against Turks, and sacrificed their lives for the cause of Entente, yet Turks are held responsible for this crime.
Holocaust and 1915 Events
The 1915 events are both historically and legally different from the Holocaust. No link can be established between the Ottoman Armenians and German Jews.
First, there is ample evidence recognized by competent international courts proving that genocide was committed in Nazi Germany against Jews. Therefore, the Jewish genocide is an undisputable historical fact.
The tribunal at Nuremberg proved the guilt of the perpetrators of the Holocaust and sentences were carried out in accordance with agreed-upon procedures.
On the contrary, Malta Tribunal, which was convened by the World War I victors, acquitted those alleged to have been responsible for the misrule of the relocation policies. Moreover, Jews did not demand the dismemberment of the nations in which they had lived. The Ottoman Armenians openly agitated for a separate state in lands in which they were numerically inferior.
The Hunchak and Dashnak organizations which survive to this day as cited above, were formed expressly to agitate against the Ottoman government.
Jews did not kill their fellow citizens in the nations in which they had lived. The Ottoman Armenians committed massacres against local Muslims. Jews did not openly join the ranks of their countries’ enemies during World War II.
But, during World War I, Ottoman Armenians openly and with pride committed mass treason, took up arms, travelled to Russia for training, and sported Russian uniforms. Others, non-uniformed irregulars, operated against the Ottoman government from behind the lines.
New World Order
Both the timing and reasons for turning the genocide allegations into some sort of religious hate speech against Turkey are notable.
The Armenian genocide allegations gained new momentum in the 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet system and the end of the Cold War. Besides, they gained a new international dimension, incorporated in the “New World Order” shaped around the “Clash of Civilizations” where Prof. Samuel Huntington emphasized religious differences.
Although it was not their direct concern, until now 32 countries and two international parliamentary assembly passed a total of 58 parliamentary resolutions on the subject.
One of these declarations is dated 1915. As part of war propaganda, the Russian, French, and British parliaments blamed Turkey with a joint declaration. From 1915 to 1990’s, including the 1970’s and 1980’s when Turkish diplomats were mercilessly assassinated, the number of parliamentary declarations were only six. The remaining 51 resolution are a product of the new world order, which started after the Cold War was over.
The first accusation after the Cold War came about in 1993, when Samuel Huntington published his “Clash of Civilizations” thesis in the Journal of Foreign Affairs. After his thesis came out as a book in 1996, foreign parliaments started to declare their accusations one after the other.
This cannot be a mere coincidence.
Huntington had emphasized that ethnic and religious differences, which he defined as the civilization, would become the major fault line in the new world order. Here, the struggle events between Armenians against Turks and Kurds during World War I is described as a major example of the conflict of civilizations where the enemy iss Islam, supported by the claim that the borders of Islam are drawn in blood.
The Armenian allegations of genocide were brought forward in the international arena within this context. As a result, they have become part of contemporary politics rather than a historical and legal issue.
Beyond that, the clash of civilizations theory has also shaped the fashion with which Armenian allegations of genocide are framed. The accusations of genocide are directed towards Turks as a nation and Turkey as a country.
British Governments
British Parliament is a notable exception among those 32 parliaments that have recognized the so-called Armenian Genocide.
During the World War I years and afterwards, the British tried to use every opportunity to try and sentence every Turk they arrested for the “killing of local Christian people”. However, as the country that knows best what happened during these days, today they clearly state that the events of 1915-1916 cannot be described as genocide.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Western parliaments were recognizing Armenian genocide claims, as if it were a necessity of adaptation to the new world order, the UK was also asked to do the same. British Spokesperson of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale rejected such demand in a speech dated 14 April 1999 delivered on behalf of the British government:
“…in the absence of unequivocal evidence to show that the Ottoman administration took a specific decision to eliminate the Armenians under their control at the time, British governments have not recognised the events of 1915 and 1916 as ‘genocide. …we do not believe it is the business of governments today to review events of over 80 years ago with a view to pronouncing on them… These are matters of legal and historical debate.”
Despite this statement, the Armenian genocide lobby has maintained its pressure on the UK, ultimately resulting in the Armenian genocide allegations being addressed during a Holocaust commemoration ceremony held in London on 27 January 2001.
In a press conference held in Ankara on 22 January 2001, Britain’s Beverley Hughes, then parliamentary under-secretary of state in the department of the environment, transport, and the regions, stated that only the Holocaust would be addressed during the ceremony and made the following declaration in Istanbul:
“A while ago, the British government reviewed evidence put forth on the Armenian allegations and examined documents on the events of 1915-1916. The decision is that these events do not correspond to what is defined as genocide by the UN. This is the attitude of the British government, and this will never change.”
In a response to a question on this matter, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Baroness Scotland told the House of Lords on 7 February 2001:
“The Government, in line with previous British Governments, have judged the evidence relating to events in eastern Anatolia in 1915-1916 not to be sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be categorized as genocide as defined by the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.”
Here comes the million-dollar question: “What evidence was judged, and which documents were examined by the British governments?”
The answer is the “Malta Tribunal” of 1919-1921…
Malta Tribunal
The Foreign Office documents of the Malta Tribunal (1919-1921) unearthed from the British National Achieves constitutes a new light on the Armenian genocide allegations. It is a historical fact that we have forgotten and indeed were made to forget.
Remembering this tribunal and embracing its reality will make the Armenian genocide lobbies, which at every turn calls on Turkey to “face its history”, to face the invalidity of their allegations by examining the British national achieve documented realities of history.
Malta Tribunal documents expose a rather crucial historical and judizial reality regarding 1915-1916 events should not be defined as genocide.
Had the international public opinion, or those 32 state parliaments (i.e. United States, Russia, France, Switzerland, Germany…) which have backed the Armenian allegations, have given due to scholarly attention to the historic facts of the Malta Tribunal, they would have then seen that the alleged Armenian genocide is indeed a farce without any validity whatsoever.
In this respect, the successive British governments have adopted such an exemplary international politics with realism, and above all, with integrity and credibility.
1919-1920 Ottoman Court-Martials
During World War I and afterwards, the British tried to use every opportunity to trial and then sentence every Turk they arrested for the “killing of not only Armenians, but all local Christian people”.
After World War I, effort to prosecute the so-called “Ottoman war criminals” was taken up with the Ottoman Empire by the (1919) Paris Peace Conference) and ultimately included in the (1920) Treaty of Sèvres).
By the end of the War, when victorious Allied powers occupied several parts of the Ottoman Empire, the new Ottoman government set up some court-martials to prosecute “crimes against Armenians” under extreme British pressure.
Under this pressure, the court-martials speeded up the so-called judicial process and the sentences were proclaimed and carried out immediately.
The court-martial in Istanbul decided to pass death sentences in absentia on 5 of the leading CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) members. They were accused of being the perpetrator of the “Armenian massacres and the entrance of the Ottoman Empire into World War I.
Meanwhile many other government officials were sentenced to death and the sentences were carried out.
Armenian genocide lobbies regard the Ottoman court-martials as a reliable judicial mechanism proving the genocidal intent of the Ottoman CUP government.
But this is both historically and legally a make-believe replica… The judges assigned to these court-martials felt helpless under strong governmental and external pressure and many of them resigned during the trials.
Also, trial procedures were not appropriate. There were false witnesses, exaggerated testimony, and so forth. And to accelerate the “so-called” legal procedures, to hire a lawyer was not permitted and the accused were not allowed to appeal.
Under these conditions, although no clear evidence proving his role in the Armenian massacres could be found, a district governor of Boğazlayan, Kemal Bey, was declared guilty and sentenced to death. The presiding judge of the court-martial, Mustafa Pasha, clearly declared the lack of impartiality in these courts. He stated that “a court-martial operating under occupation acts in line with emotions instead of conscience. This is an order coming from above”.
Kemal Bey’s execution caused significant public outcry against the Ottoman government and the British. This became a turning point for 1919-1920 Ottoman court-martials.
Admiral Calthorpe, the then Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, and High Commissioner at İstanbul reported to London that the Ottoman trials were; “proving to be a farce and injurious to our own prestige and to that of the Turkish government.”
Admiral John de Robeck, who replaced Admiral Calthorpe informed London of the futility of continuing the trials with the remark: “Its findings cannot be held of any account at all.”
In the meantime, current Ottoman government was overthrown. The new government gave the right to appeal to those convicted in the 1919-1920 court-martials. Those who were lightly sentenced had to make their appeal personally. But for those who were sentenced to death and life imprisonment the appeal process was to be automatic.
The Ottoman Military Court of Appeal investigated the light sentence decisions taken by the court-martials and discovered significant inconsistencies and improprieties in them. Almost all the judgments made by the court-martials were reversed in this Court of Appeal.
For heavy sentences, no Ottoman Court of Appeal has been established. The British authorities considered Ottoman trials as a travesty of justice, so decided to replace the Ottoman justice with the Western justice by moving the trials to their own territory, Malta, as “International”.
Historical and legal realities of Malta Tribunal brought to light from British national achieves give us an opportunity to answer this question – who should be held responsible for the Armenian losses…
We must underline that, neither the intent of a systematic extermination of Armenians nor the number of victims of the war tragedy of 1915 was ever established by any tribunal. No court decision was issued to interpret those days inter-communal violence as an act of genocide consistent with the relevant 1948 United Nations Convention.
Perhaps, more important is the fact that, there is an international court ruling falsifying the Armenian genocide allegations. That is the “International Court-Martial in Malta”, which is known as the Malta Tribunal…
Achieve documents relating to the Malta Tribunal should be revealed and not be forgotten on the dusty shelves of history.
Prisoners of War
By the end of the First World War, when victorious British army occupied Istanbul, the capital of Ottoman Empire, 144 Ottoman officials and military officers – majority of them members or sympathizers of the Committee of Union and Progress – were arrested and sent to Malta as prisoners of war.
The aim was “to trial and sentence the Turks” on the grounds that they had “perpetrated mass killings against Armenians”.
A judicial prosecution was opened against the Turks who were detained in Malta. The prosecution was conducted for more than two years, to investigate the accusation of “mass killing of Armenians.”
The investigation was conducted by Britain’s highest legal prosecution authority, Her/His Majesty’s Attorney (Prosecutor) General for England, and Wales in London.
The British Prosecutor General’s tribunal was based on Articles 230 and 231 of the Treaty of Sevres over “Armenian massacre” allegations.
Article 230 of the Treaty of Sèvres required the Ottoman Empire to “hand over to the Allied Powers the persons whose surrender may be required by the latter as being responsible for the massacres committed during the continuance of the state of war on territory which formed part of the Ottoman Empire on August 1, 1914”.
Along with the Ottoman archives transported to London after being seized during the invasion, every document believed to be in America was examined. Also, proof of the “Armenian massacre” was searched for in Egypt, Iraq, and Caucasia.
_ . _
The end of Part 2 of 3.
About Author: ULUÇ GÜRKAN
Editor and Chief of ANKA News Agency (1983-1989)
Editor and Chief of Daily Güneş (1990-1991)
Member- Turkish Grand National Assembly/TGNA (1991-2002)Vice President–Parliamentery Assebly oy the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe/OSCE-PA(1992-1995)
Deputy Speaker-Turkish Grand National Assembly/TGNA (1995-1999)
Head of the Turkish Delegation-Parliamentary Assembly of the Western European Union/WEU-PA (1999-2002)
Vice President-Parliamentary Assembly of the Conncil of Europr/PACE (2000-2002)
- Vice President–Parliamentery Assebly oy the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe/OSCE-PA(1992-1995)
- Deputy Speaker-Turkish Grand National Assembly/TGNA (1995-1999)
- Head of the Turkish Delegation-Parliamentary Assembly of the Western European Union/WEU-PA (1999-2002)
- Vice President-Parliamentary Assembly of the Conncil of Europr/PACE (2000-2002)
Lecturer at METU & Ufuk University (2003- ……)
– End of Part 2 of 3