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Turkish Military Covers Up Mass Grave Of Possible Genocide Victims

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  • Turkish Military Covers Up Mass Grave Of Possible Genocide Victims

    TURKISH MILITARY COVERS UP MASS GRAVE OF POSSIBLE GENOCIDE VICTIMS

    Asbarez
    11/3/2006

    MARDIN, Turkey--Turkish gendarmerie has instructed local villagers
    of a southeastern region to keep silence about a recently discovered
    a mass grave, discovered on October 17, that might contain remains
    of Armenian Genocide victims in mass burial site that might contain
    skeletons of massacred Armenians.

    According to Ulkede Ozgur Gundem, a Kurdish newspaper published in
    Turkish, villagers from Xirabebaba (Kuru) 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.

    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. Turkish army officers, according
    to Ulkede Ozgur Gundem, 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. In an October 22 article, titled Found
    by Villagers: Covered up by the Military, the newspaper wrote that
    soldiers from Akarsu gendarmerie headquarters came to the site,
    covered the cave entrance and took photographs. Journalists, who had
    arrived to obtain more information, were denied access to the cave.

    Although there had been prior instances of finding mass burial sites
    believed to be from the Armenian Genocide, this was the first incident
    when a Turkish daily newspaper reported the discovery.

    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
    officers told the villagers that the news reported by Roj TV, an
    international Kurdish satellite television, and Ulkede ozgur Gundem
    were all lies. 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 Syrian males, heads of their families, from the nearby town of Dara
    (now Oguz) killed on June 14, 1915.

    The Armenian and Syrian residents were marched out of the town,
    and only one person was known to have escaped to tell of what had
    happened, Prof. Gaunt said. According to the Syrian survivor, his
    marching neighbors were murdered and their bodies were placed in a
    well. The mass burial in this cave suggests that the two groups could
    have been killed in separate places, and that the Armenians were put
    into this cave, while the Syrians were put in a well, concluded Prof.

    Gaunt, whose book, Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian
    Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I, is due out this
    month.
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