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Swedish Parliament will discuss Mass Grave

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  • Swedish Parliament will discuss Mass Grave

    ARMENIAN NATIONAL COMMITTE-SCANDINAVIA
    PRYLV. 7
    12637 HÄGERSTEN
    SWEDEN
    CONTACT: SUZANNE K. HOLMQUIST
    AGOP KHATCHERIAN
    TEL. +46 708 809316
    FAX: +46 8 645 65 92
    E-MAIL. [email protected]

    Swedish MP questions the FM Carl Bildt on the issue
    of Mass grave recently discovered in Turkey

    (Interpolation in Swedish Parliament on 12 December 2006)


    Stockholm (anc-scandinavia):
    Hans Linde, a Swedish member of the Swedish Parliament
    belonging to the Vaenster Party /Left/ will be
    addressing the Parliament on the 12 of December on
    the issue of the mass grave discovered in Turkey
    last October, which could contain the remains of
    Armenian Genocide victims.

    Hans Linde will specifically ask the Foreign Minister
    to work for the creation of an expert commission that
    would in a scientific manner identify the cause of
    death and the identity of the remains discovered in
    the mass grave.

    Last October a mass grave was discovered when
    villagers from Xirabebaba (Kuru) in Eastern Turkey,
    were digging a grave for one of their relatives when
    they came across to a cave full of skulls and bones of
    reportedly 40 people. that according to historian
    Davis Gaunt might contain remains of Armenian Genocide
    victims.

    According to a The Xirabebaba residents assumed they
    had uncovered a mass grave of 300 Armenian villagers
    massacred during the Genocide of 1915. They informed
    Akarsu Gendarmerie headquarters, the local military
    unit, about the discovered remains. Kurdish newspaper
    published in Turkish Ulkede Ozgur Gundem, the Turkish
    Gendarmerie then had has instructed local villagers to
    keep silence about the discovery. Turkish army
    officers, according to the Kurdish newspaper,
    instructed the villagers to block the cave entrance
    and make no mention of the remains buried in it. The
    officers said an investigation would take place. The
    newspaper reported on the developments and the Turkish
    military's attempt to hide the news. Journalists, who
    had arrived to obtain more information, were denied
    access to the cave.

    As the mass burial made news, local Gendarmerie made
    another visit to the villagers. The latter were
    pressed to report the name of the person who leaked
    the mass burial discovery to the press. The villagers
    were warned not to show anyone directions to the cave.


    The victims of the mass grave, according to Sodertorn
    University History Professor David Gaunt, are most
    likely the 150 Armenian and 120 Assyrian males from
    the nearby town of Dara (now Oguz) killed on June 13,
    1915. David Gaunt Believes that it could also be the
    remains of Armenian women from Mardin who were driven
    out and executed at that place. It could belong to
    Assyrian children, men and women from the prison of
    Nusaybin that were executed in the same place on the
    28th of June 1915.
    Professor Gaunt is an expert on the region's history
    and soon will his latest book entitled Massacres,
    Resistance, Protectors, Muslim-Christian Relations in
    Eastern Anatolia During World War I, (Gorgias Press,
    New Jersey, 2006 ) describes 200 similar massacres
    carried out in 1915, in Tur Abdin, a region in
    today's Eastern Turkey. These were massacres carried
    out by the governor Reshit Bey, a representative of
    the ottoman state apparatus.
    The Turkish Human Rights Association since then has
    been vocal about the issue and has addressed an open
    letter to the Minister of Interior Affairs in Turkey
    demanding the creation of an independent commission
    that should look at the issue closer and identify the
    cause of death and identify the ethnicity the
    discovered human remains.

    Hans Linde, the Swedish MP, will also demand answers
    on such questions whether FM Carl Bildt is willing to
    cooperate so that Sweden as an individual state and as
    a member of the EU, can work to bring the Turkish
    authorities to open the Ottoman archives for
    international Research, and decriminalize all
    research and debate on the Genocide of Armenians and
    Assyrians under the Ottoman responsibility. He
    justifies the importance of the issue by arguing that
    'reconciliation between the Armenian and Turkish
    nations is not possible to achieve unless Turkey
    opens its archives for research and free debate is
    allowed. To talk and write about the Armenian
    Genocide should be totally decriminalized'. Every
    country's history contains dark chapters he writes,
    However, democratic states should be able to freely
    study, map , debate and discuss these unpleasant pages
    of history. Turkey cannot be an exception'.

    ANC Scandinavia
    Contact:
    [email protected]


    Below you can find more info on David Gaunt's new
    book:

    Author: David Gaunt
    Title: Massacres, Resistance, Protectors:
    Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during
    World War I
    Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
    Publication Date: 10/10/2006
    ISBN: 1-59333-301-3
    Format: Paperback xvii + 535 pages, 22 illustrations

    This is a pioneering historical investigation of the
    Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syrian Christian minorities
    during World War I, who suffered the same fate as the
    Armenians. Ethnic cleansing and large-scale massacres
    occurred throughout northern Mesopotamia and parts of
    Ottoman-occupied Iran. Based on primary sources from
    official Russian, Turkish, and West European archives,
    as well as hitherto unused manuscript sources and oral
    histories published here for the first time, this book
    attempts to give a full picture of the events of 1915.
    Concentration is on the Assyrians of Urmia and Hakkari
    and on the Syrians of Diyarbekir province,
    particularly in Tur Abdin.
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