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'HAI TAHD': NEW PRIORITIES FOR A NEW AGENDA (PART I)
By: Michael Mensoian
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2011/06/02/%e2%80%98hai-tahd%e2%80%99-new-priorities-for-a-new-agenda-part-i/
Thu, Jun 2 2011
The founding of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) in 1890
was a selfless response by a group of men and women to the oppressive
socioeconomic and political conditions that afflicted the Armenian
population of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.
The history of the ARF during this early period (1890 to 1923) reads
like a romantic novel. However, this was not fiction. As fedayee, they
challenged the rapaciousness of the Turkish and Kurdish overlords who
ruled the interior of Anatolia or the government-sponsored pogroms that
were responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Armenians. As
political leaders, at times working with the Young Turks, they sought
to introduce constitutional reforms to ameliorate the socioeconomic
condition of the ethnic minorities within the empire. The incentive
for the ARF was to lessen the oppressive burden of Ottoman-Turkish
rule on the Armenians. For the Young Turks or Ittihadists, at least
initially, the purpose was to maintain a multi-ethnic empire from
disintegrating. And in the diplomatic arena, the ARF represented the
interests of the Armenian people vis-a-vis the international power
brokers such as England and France.
The Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed on July 24, 1923 by the United
Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania, the Serb-Croat-Slovene
State, and Turkey, ignored the interests of the Armenian people and
sealed the fate of the Armenian nation. Hai Tahd (Armenian Cause) is
the Dashnaktsutiun Manifesto of these injustices that have afflicted
the Armenian people and their nation since 1915.
Injustice number one: the genocide
The genocide of the Armenian population of Anatolia by the
Ottoman-Turkish government represents the bedrock of Hai Tahd. The
determined attempt to annihilate the Armenian nation is the proximate
cause of the injustices represented by Hai Tahd. Before this genocide
of a nation was completed, over two million Armenians were uprooted
from their homes in lands that had been continuously occupied centuries
before the Turkish tribes entered the region from central Asia. From
1915-23, Turkish barbarity put to death some 1.5 million men, women,
and children, effectively emptying the historic Armenian provinces
in Anatolia of their rightful inhabitants.
Injustice number two: the confiscation of real and personal property
The depopulation of the Armenian settlements throughout Anatolia
resulted in a massive shift of wealth from the innocent victims
of the genocide to the newly recognized Turkish state (Treaty of
Lausanne, 1923) and its people. Included were productive farmlands,
orchards, and vineyards with their implements and farm animals; homes;
businesses; inventories of goods, raw materials, and personal effects;
community-held property; and religious and educational structures
and lands. This confiscated wealth was never fully inventoried nor
was its value calculated either in 1915 or now.
Injustice number three: the loss of Wilsonian Armenian
The Treaty of Sevres (Aug. 10, 1920) established a free and independent
Armenia based on U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Arbitral Award. The
nascent independent republic of Armenia established following the
victory over Turkish forces at Sadarabad (May 1918) was beset with
overwhelming social, economic, and political problems.
Although Sultan Mehmet VI (Muhammad VI) had capitulated at Mudros
(Oct. 30, 1918) to the United Kingdom representing the allies,
Kemal Ataturk, operating from the interior city of Ankara, blamed the
government for losing the empire. His nationalistic message resonated
with the military as he set about to reclaim Anatolia from the Greek,
French, and Italian spheres of interest established by the allies. If
allowed to stand, coupled with a free Armenia occupying eastern
Anatolia, only the central region from Ankara north to the Black
Sea would have remained under direct Turkish control. During the
time between the treaties of Sevres and Lausanne, Ataturk reclaimed
all of Anatolia for the Turks. Forced to accept this new reality,
the principal allied powers (the United Kingdom and France), intent
on preserving their own interests within the greater Near East
(present-day Middle East), framed the Treaty of Lausanne, which
superseded the Treaty of Sevres. Turkey was recognized as a sovereign
state within its present borders, the Armenian Genocide was ignored,
and President Wilson's free and independent Armenia was forgotten.
Injustice number four: destruction of Armenian cultural artifacts
Not content with annihilating the Armenian nation, the succession of
Turkish governments from Ataturk to current Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan adopted a policy that denies the genocide and
eliminates all traces of Armenian occupation and development of
Anatolia centuries before a Turkic political entity was established.
Armenian cultural artifacts were purposely destroyed, allowed to fall
into ruin, pillaged by the local population for building materials,
or used for purposes for which they were never intended. Especially
was this true of religious structures and ancient cemeteries with
their beautiful hand-carved khatchkars. Place names were changed and
the cultural landscape of settled areas deliberately altered.
Injustice number five: unilateral confiscation of historic Armenian
lands
In August 1920, the Armenian nation was still traumatized by the
murder of 1.5 million of its people. The attendant destruction
of the social, economic, and political framework of the nation was
almost complete. Independent Armenia was in no position to forcefully
represent its justifiable claims expressed in the Treaty of Sevres or
to challenge the Kemalists who were allowed free reign, especially by
the United Kingdom, to reassert Turkish control over all of Anatolia.
The French were in control of Syria (including present-day Lebanon)
and the adjoining Turkish district of Alexandrette (Iskenderun) and,
having nothing further to gain, colluded with Ataturk and withdrew
its forces from the Cilician region leaving the Armenians defenseless.
Events subsequent to the subversion of the first independent Republic
of Armenia (May 28, 1918 to Nov. 29, 1920) by the Russian Bolsheviks
and their Armenian sympathizers involved the loss of additional
historic Armenian territories. With the Treaty of Moscow (March 1921),
the newly formed Socialist Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan was awarded
Armenian Artsakh and Nakhitchevan. A few months later (July 1921),
the Bolsheviks placed Javakhk under Georgian jurisdiction. And in an
attempt to foster better relations with Ataturk's Turkey, the Russian
Bolsheviks ceded the Kars-Ardahan region to Turkey in the Treaty of
Kars (October 1921). What remained of the Bolshevik Armenian Republic
was the core area centered on Yerevan and Gyumri.
Injustice number six: the issue of Artsakh
Our brothers and sisters in Karabagh (part of historic Armenian
Artsakh) were forced to live for some seven decades under a hostile
Turkic-Azeri government. The perverted policies of the Bolsheviks
continually thwarted the Karabagh Armenian petitions to rejoin
Armenia. Finally, in 1989, the Armenians declared their independence
from Azerbaijan in accordance with the recognized principles of
self-determination and remedial secession. The response to this
declaration was a full-scale attack by the Azeri military forces. The
Karabagh Armenians, supported by the Republic of Armenia and ARF
volunteers, successfully defended their declared independence and
were able to liberate significant areas of historic Artsakh. For
the past 17 years (the 1994 ceasefire officially ended the war),
the Artsakh Armenians have enjoyed de facto independence. However,
their right to de jure independence hangs in the balance against
Turkish and Azerbaijani attempts to frame the issue simply as an
unprovoked attack by Armenia on a neighbor's territorial integrity
or Armenian irredentism.
Injustice number seven: the forced acculturation of the 'Javakhayer'
Javakhk (Georgian Samtskhe-Javakheti) is an historic Armenian land
that was placed under the jurisdiction of neighboring Georgia in 1921
by the Russian Bolsheviks. The region occupies a strategic location
along the border with Turkey; the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline
passes through the district. An indication of the Tbilisi government's
determination to acculturate the Armenians was the following comment
by Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze in an October 2010
interview during a visit to Armenia: "I don't know what Javakhk is;
there is no Javakhk region on the map."
Through resettlement projects, the government seeks to reduce the
Armenian majorities within the region's districts. Infrastructural
development (roads, electricity) receives less emphasis than other
regions of the country. The closure in 2007 of the Russian military
base at Akhalkalaki where many Armenians were employed increased their
already high unemployment rate within the region. Manufacturing is
non-existent and agriculture needs significant inputs of technology
and marketing infrastructure to rise above its present subsistence
level. The government continues its pernicious assault on the
cultural fabric of the people: their language, church, education,
public gatherings, and means of mass communication. Employment
opportunities are purposely limited and participation in the political
process hampered. The United States turns a blind eye to these obvious
transgressions against the Armenians while it continues to portray
Georgia as a beacon of democracy in the South Caucasus.
Part II will suggest setting new priorities for a new agenda
that shifts the emphasis to objectives that are more immediate and
significant with respect to Hai Tahd, to the ARF, and to the Armenian
nation.
From: Baghdasarian
By: Michael Mensoian
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2011/06/02/%e2%80%98hai-tahd%e2%80%99-new-priorities-for-a-new-agenda-part-i/
Thu, Jun 2 2011
The founding of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) in 1890
was a selfless response by a group of men and women to the oppressive
socioeconomic and political conditions that afflicted the Armenian
population of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.
The history of the ARF during this early period (1890 to 1923) reads
like a romantic novel. However, this was not fiction. As fedayee, they
challenged the rapaciousness of the Turkish and Kurdish overlords who
ruled the interior of Anatolia or the government-sponsored pogroms that
were responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Armenians. As
political leaders, at times working with the Young Turks, they sought
to introduce constitutional reforms to ameliorate the socioeconomic
condition of the ethnic minorities within the empire. The incentive
for the ARF was to lessen the oppressive burden of Ottoman-Turkish
rule on the Armenians. For the Young Turks or Ittihadists, at least
initially, the purpose was to maintain a multi-ethnic empire from
disintegrating. And in the diplomatic arena, the ARF represented the
interests of the Armenian people vis-a-vis the international power
brokers such as England and France.
The Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed on July 24, 1923 by the United
Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania, the Serb-Croat-Slovene
State, and Turkey, ignored the interests of the Armenian people and
sealed the fate of the Armenian nation. Hai Tahd (Armenian Cause) is
the Dashnaktsutiun Manifesto of these injustices that have afflicted
the Armenian people and their nation since 1915.
Injustice number one: the genocide
The genocide of the Armenian population of Anatolia by the
Ottoman-Turkish government represents the bedrock of Hai Tahd. The
determined attempt to annihilate the Armenian nation is the proximate
cause of the injustices represented by Hai Tahd. Before this genocide
of a nation was completed, over two million Armenians were uprooted
from their homes in lands that had been continuously occupied centuries
before the Turkish tribes entered the region from central Asia. From
1915-23, Turkish barbarity put to death some 1.5 million men, women,
and children, effectively emptying the historic Armenian provinces
in Anatolia of their rightful inhabitants.
Injustice number two: the confiscation of real and personal property
The depopulation of the Armenian settlements throughout Anatolia
resulted in a massive shift of wealth from the innocent victims
of the genocide to the newly recognized Turkish state (Treaty of
Lausanne, 1923) and its people. Included were productive farmlands,
orchards, and vineyards with their implements and farm animals; homes;
businesses; inventories of goods, raw materials, and personal effects;
community-held property; and religious and educational structures
and lands. This confiscated wealth was never fully inventoried nor
was its value calculated either in 1915 or now.
Injustice number three: the loss of Wilsonian Armenian
The Treaty of Sevres (Aug. 10, 1920) established a free and independent
Armenia based on U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Arbitral Award. The
nascent independent republic of Armenia established following the
victory over Turkish forces at Sadarabad (May 1918) was beset with
overwhelming social, economic, and political problems.
Although Sultan Mehmet VI (Muhammad VI) had capitulated at Mudros
(Oct. 30, 1918) to the United Kingdom representing the allies,
Kemal Ataturk, operating from the interior city of Ankara, blamed the
government for losing the empire. His nationalistic message resonated
with the military as he set about to reclaim Anatolia from the Greek,
French, and Italian spheres of interest established by the allies. If
allowed to stand, coupled with a free Armenia occupying eastern
Anatolia, only the central region from Ankara north to the Black
Sea would have remained under direct Turkish control. During the
time between the treaties of Sevres and Lausanne, Ataturk reclaimed
all of Anatolia for the Turks. Forced to accept this new reality,
the principal allied powers (the United Kingdom and France), intent
on preserving their own interests within the greater Near East
(present-day Middle East), framed the Treaty of Lausanne, which
superseded the Treaty of Sevres. Turkey was recognized as a sovereign
state within its present borders, the Armenian Genocide was ignored,
and President Wilson's free and independent Armenia was forgotten.
Injustice number four: destruction of Armenian cultural artifacts
Not content with annihilating the Armenian nation, the succession of
Turkish governments from Ataturk to current Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan adopted a policy that denies the genocide and
eliminates all traces of Armenian occupation and development of
Anatolia centuries before a Turkic political entity was established.
Armenian cultural artifacts were purposely destroyed, allowed to fall
into ruin, pillaged by the local population for building materials,
or used for purposes for which they were never intended. Especially
was this true of religious structures and ancient cemeteries with
their beautiful hand-carved khatchkars. Place names were changed and
the cultural landscape of settled areas deliberately altered.
Injustice number five: unilateral confiscation of historic Armenian
lands
In August 1920, the Armenian nation was still traumatized by the
murder of 1.5 million of its people. The attendant destruction
of the social, economic, and political framework of the nation was
almost complete. Independent Armenia was in no position to forcefully
represent its justifiable claims expressed in the Treaty of Sevres or
to challenge the Kemalists who were allowed free reign, especially by
the United Kingdom, to reassert Turkish control over all of Anatolia.
The French were in control of Syria (including present-day Lebanon)
and the adjoining Turkish district of Alexandrette (Iskenderun) and,
having nothing further to gain, colluded with Ataturk and withdrew
its forces from the Cilician region leaving the Armenians defenseless.
Events subsequent to the subversion of the first independent Republic
of Armenia (May 28, 1918 to Nov. 29, 1920) by the Russian Bolsheviks
and their Armenian sympathizers involved the loss of additional
historic Armenian territories. With the Treaty of Moscow (March 1921),
the newly formed Socialist Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan was awarded
Armenian Artsakh and Nakhitchevan. A few months later (July 1921),
the Bolsheviks placed Javakhk under Georgian jurisdiction. And in an
attempt to foster better relations with Ataturk's Turkey, the Russian
Bolsheviks ceded the Kars-Ardahan region to Turkey in the Treaty of
Kars (October 1921). What remained of the Bolshevik Armenian Republic
was the core area centered on Yerevan and Gyumri.
Injustice number six: the issue of Artsakh
Our brothers and sisters in Karabagh (part of historic Armenian
Artsakh) were forced to live for some seven decades under a hostile
Turkic-Azeri government. The perverted policies of the Bolsheviks
continually thwarted the Karabagh Armenian petitions to rejoin
Armenia. Finally, in 1989, the Armenians declared their independence
from Azerbaijan in accordance with the recognized principles of
self-determination and remedial secession. The response to this
declaration was a full-scale attack by the Azeri military forces. The
Karabagh Armenians, supported by the Republic of Armenia and ARF
volunteers, successfully defended their declared independence and
were able to liberate significant areas of historic Artsakh. For
the past 17 years (the 1994 ceasefire officially ended the war),
the Artsakh Armenians have enjoyed de facto independence. However,
their right to de jure independence hangs in the balance against
Turkish and Azerbaijani attempts to frame the issue simply as an
unprovoked attack by Armenia on a neighbor's territorial integrity
or Armenian irredentism.
Injustice number seven: the forced acculturation of the 'Javakhayer'
Javakhk (Georgian Samtskhe-Javakheti) is an historic Armenian land
that was placed under the jurisdiction of neighboring Georgia in 1921
by the Russian Bolsheviks. The region occupies a strategic location
along the border with Turkey; the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline
passes through the district. An indication of the Tbilisi government's
determination to acculturate the Armenians was the following comment
by Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze in an October 2010
interview during a visit to Armenia: "I don't know what Javakhk is;
there is no Javakhk region on the map."
Through resettlement projects, the government seeks to reduce the
Armenian majorities within the region's districts. Infrastructural
development (roads, electricity) receives less emphasis than other
regions of the country. The closure in 2007 of the Russian military
base at Akhalkalaki where many Armenians were employed increased their
already high unemployment rate within the region. Manufacturing is
non-existent and agriculture needs significant inputs of technology
and marketing infrastructure to rise above its present subsistence
level. The government continues its pernicious assault on the
cultural fabric of the people: their language, church, education,
public gatherings, and means of mass communication. Employment
opportunities are purposely limited and participation in the political
process hampered. The United States turns a blind eye to these obvious
transgressions against the Armenians while it continues to portray
Georgia as a beacon of democracy in the South Caucasus.
Part II will suggest setting new priorities for a new agenda
that shifts the emphasis to objectives that are more immediate and
significant with respect to Hai Tahd, to the ARF, and to the Armenian
nation.
From: Baghdasarian