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International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
(A Division of the Zoryan Institute)
Sarig Babian, Program Coordinator
255 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite 310
Toronto, Ontario
M3B 3H9
Tel: 416-250-9807
Fax: 416-512-1736
Web: http://www.genocidestudies.org/
http://www.zoryaninstitute.org/
`The Zoryan Institute would like to share with you this English and
Armenian translation of a review that just appeared in Taraf (April
22, 2011) newspaper in Turkey, reviewing an important book by
Professors Vahakn Dadrian and Taner Akçam on the Turkish Military
Tribunals that occurred after World War I of the perpetrators of the
Armenian Genocide. The following is a verbatim translation of
excerpts from that review. The English edition of this book is
expected to be published in Fall 2011.'
Actually We Had Already Prosecuted The 1915 Event
Nearly a century ago and through 61 criminal court
proceedings the Istanbul Courts-Martial had already prosecuted some 300
Young Turk Ittihadist chieftains accused of complicity in the massacres
of 1915. Even though they did not produce any practically significant
results, they nevertheless led to the revelation of a large mass of
documentary evidence.
The volume under discussion is titled The Court-Martial
Proceedings of the Military Tribunal 1919-1922 (Tehcir ve Taktil.
Divan-ı Harb-ı Å=90rfi Zabıtları. 1919-1922).
Compiled jointly by Vahakn Dadrian and Taner Akçam. Istanbul, Bilgi
University Press, 2010, 2d edition, 733 pp.
As noted in the Preface by the two authors, despite the fact
that some 100 years have passed since the tragedy, the withholding and
concealment of the court records relative to the judicial proceedings is
but a paramount fact indicative of the importance of their contents.
The silence and fear associated with the disclosure of these proceedings
is clearly illustrated in this prefatory statement. This state of mind
bespeaks of a design to foil any attempt to unravel the concealed
aspects of the tragedy of 1915.
The present attempt to acquaint with potential readers,
involves a book comprising the record of the proceedings of the criminal
trials relative to the World War I genocide. Launched in November 1918,
the Courts-Martial set forth to prosecute the Ittihadist leaders under
the charges of a) entering World War I, b) massacre against the
Christian minorities: primarily the Armenians, c) illegitimate and
unlawful state transactions. Following 62 court proceedings in the
period between 1919 and 1922, 20 death verdicts were issued but only 3
of them could be actually executed. There is the following conclusive
observation in the work of Vahakn N. Dadrian, the world renowned expert
on genocidology.
Even though belated in their initiation and thus futile in essence,
some Armenian political leaders attempted to emulate the
independence-oriented revolutionary drives and tactics of the European
nations in the Balkans. Notwithstanding the role of some other
ancillary factors, the Armenians having been deprived of external
help, ended up suffering a most horrible failure.
In general the Armenians continue to circumvent and overlook
this aspect of the problem-deliberately. At issue here is the inability
of the Armenian leadership cadres to apply standards of statesmanship in
their thinking as they failed to grasp the importance of the principle
of raison d'état, i.e, the justification of the existence
and function of the state as an institution. The fact to consider is
that a state, i.e., a government, can only pursue a
`modern' system of governance through which strictly
self-interest-policies can be adopted. These leadership shortcomings
led to the rise of opportunities through which the Ittihadists set out
to carry out their policy of annihilation.
Continuing, Dadrian added the following:
Aware of the vulnerability of the Armenians and of the resulting
opportunities to profit from it, the Turkish leaders pounced upon the
Armenians and crushed them with boundless fury and vindictiveness. It
appears that the the Turkish leaders' apprehension of issuing from a
process of gradual disintegration of their Empire, coupled with a
cumulative sense of anger and irritability, led to the eruption of a
lethal anti-Armenian rage. The Armenian revolutionary movement and
the ensuing period of Armenian Reforms proved as catalysts in this
respect
As it happened in the period of Abdul Hamid era massacres,
the consequences of the February 1914 Armenian Reform Agreement, through
which the Ittihadist regime was compelled to embrace a historically
renewed scheme of Armenian Reform, proved cataclysmic as these reforms
helped precipitate the great catastrophe. To refer to Dadrian again:
Without exaggeration one may assert that the onset of this delicate
phase of evolving political developments proved to be the death warrant
of the Armenian people, comparable to the issuance of a ferman. Demands
for
`equality of rights,' then
`semi-autonomy', to be followed by `complete
autonomy' were signposts heralding the onset of a replica of the
Balkan model of emancipation
from Ottoman rule. Intent on avoiding a duplication of this Balkan
syndrome, the Ittihadist leaders resolved to seek and apply a radical
solution to the problem. This meant the adoption of the Hamidian precept,
namely to eliminate the Armenians themselves
With the onset of World War I the requisite conditions for
the implementation of these precepts were at hand. Two existing
conditions served to facilitate that task, namely, the administrative
astuteness of the perpetrators and the battle-tested martial aptitudes
of the Ottoman army. According to Dadrian, this bold Turkish undertaking
was held to be realizable and affordable on account of a paramount
factor characterizing the aftermath of the late nineteen-century series
of Abdul Hamid era massacres, i.e. impunity. It is precisely for this
reason that it is impossible to fully grasp the World War I Armenian
Genocide without fully taking into account this problem of impunity
attending the antecedents of that Genocide.
Commenting on the courts-martial that were held in the
period between 1919 and 1922, Dadrian offers the following comment
The criminal prosecution of high-ranking state functionaries, and
government officials identified with the Ittihad political party, was
a highly noteworthy event. It was likewise remarkable that prominent
Turkish witnesses testified for the benefit of Armenian victims as
they demanded punitive justice for the criminally incriminated
perpetrators. It was likewise most remarkable that for the first time
in Ottoman-Turkish high-ranking politicians and military officers, in
total disregard of the risks involved, dared to testify on behalf of
the Armenian victims.
There is much semblance between these courts-martial, on the
one hand, and the contemporary Ergenekon trial series in the modern
Republic of Turkey, on the other. The Armistice-period Turkish liberal
press rather extensively covered these courts-martial proceedings,
especially Sabah, Alemdar, Hadisat, Ileri, Ikdam, Zaman and Yeni Gazete.
Counterposed to these, were a band of those newspapers that were
identified with or sympathetic to Ittihad. The fact remains, however,
that the disinformation and the slanders they put forth could not
minimize the critical import of the layout of original official
documents and first-hand eyewitness accounts.
From: A. Papazian
(A Division of the Zoryan Institute)
Sarig Babian, Program Coordinator
255 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite 310
Toronto, Ontario
M3B 3H9
Tel: 416-250-9807
Fax: 416-512-1736
Web: http://www.genocidestudies.org/
http://www.zoryaninstitute.org/
`The Zoryan Institute would like to share with you this English and
Armenian translation of a review that just appeared in Taraf (April
22, 2011) newspaper in Turkey, reviewing an important book by
Professors Vahakn Dadrian and Taner Akçam on the Turkish Military
Tribunals that occurred after World War I of the perpetrators of the
Armenian Genocide. The following is a verbatim translation of
excerpts from that review. The English edition of this book is
expected to be published in Fall 2011.'
Actually We Had Already Prosecuted The 1915 Event
Nearly a century ago and through 61 criminal court
proceedings the Istanbul Courts-Martial had already prosecuted some 300
Young Turk Ittihadist chieftains accused of complicity in the massacres
of 1915. Even though they did not produce any practically significant
results, they nevertheless led to the revelation of a large mass of
documentary evidence.
The volume under discussion is titled The Court-Martial
Proceedings of the Military Tribunal 1919-1922 (Tehcir ve Taktil.
Divan-ı Harb-ı Å=90rfi Zabıtları. 1919-1922).
Compiled jointly by Vahakn Dadrian and Taner Akçam. Istanbul, Bilgi
University Press, 2010, 2d edition, 733 pp.
As noted in the Preface by the two authors, despite the fact
that some 100 years have passed since the tragedy, the withholding and
concealment of the court records relative to the judicial proceedings is
but a paramount fact indicative of the importance of their contents.
The silence and fear associated with the disclosure of these proceedings
is clearly illustrated in this prefatory statement. This state of mind
bespeaks of a design to foil any attempt to unravel the concealed
aspects of the tragedy of 1915.
The present attempt to acquaint with potential readers,
involves a book comprising the record of the proceedings of the criminal
trials relative to the World War I genocide. Launched in November 1918,
the Courts-Martial set forth to prosecute the Ittihadist leaders under
the charges of a) entering World War I, b) massacre against the
Christian minorities: primarily the Armenians, c) illegitimate and
unlawful state transactions. Following 62 court proceedings in the
period between 1919 and 1922, 20 death verdicts were issued but only 3
of them could be actually executed. There is the following conclusive
observation in the work of Vahakn N. Dadrian, the world renowned expert
on genocidology.
Even though belated in their initiation and thus futile in essence,
some Armenian political leaders attempted to emulate the
independence-oriented revolutionary drives and tactics of the European
nations in the Balkans. Notwithstanding the role of some other
ancillary factors, the Armenians having been deprived of external
help, ended up suffering a most horrible failure.
In general the Armenians continue to circumvent and overlook
this aspect of the problem-deliberately. At issue here is the inability
of the Armenian leadership cadres to apply standards of statesmanship in
their thinking as they failed to grasp the importance of the principle
of raison d'état, i.e, the justification of the existence
and function of the state as an institution. The fact to consider is
that a state, i.e., a government, can only pursue a
`modern' system of governance through which strictly
self-interest-policies can be adopted. These leadership shortcomings
led to the rise of opportunities through which the Ittihadists set out
to carry out their policy of annihilation.
Continuing, Dadrian added the following:
Aware of the vulnerability of the Armenians and of the resulting
opportunities to profit from it, the Turkish leaders pounced upon the
Armenians and crushed them with boundless fury and vindictiveness. It
appears that the the Turkish leaders' apprehension of issuing from a
process of gradual disintegration of their Empire, coupled with a
cumulative sense of anger and irritability, led to the eruption of a
lethal anti-Armenian rage. The Armenian revolutionary movement and
the ensuing period of Armenian Reforms proved as catalysts in this
respect
As it happened in the period of Abdul Hamid era massacres,
the consequences of the February 1914 Armenian Reform Agreement, through
which the Ittihadist regime was compelled to embrace a historically
renewed scheme of Armenian Reform, proved cataclysmic as these reforms
helped precipitate the great catastrophe. To refer to Dadrian again:
Without exaggeration one may assert that the onset of this delicate
phase of evolving political developments proved to be the death warrant
of the Armenian people, comparable to the issuance of a ferman. Demands
for
`equality of rights,' then
`semi-autonomy', to be followed by `complete
autonomy' were signposts heralding the onset of a replica of the
Balkan model of emancipation
from Ottoman rule. Intent on avoiding a duplication of this Balkan
syndrome, the Ittihadist leaders resolved to seek and apply a radical
solution to the problem. This meant the adoption of the Hamidian precept,
namely to eliminate the Armenians themselves
With the onset of World War I the requisite conditions for
the implementation of these precepts were at hand. Two existing
conditions served to facilitate that task, namely, the administrative
astuteness of the perpetrators and the battle-tested martial aptitudes
of the Ottoman army. According to Dadrian, this bold Turkish undertaking
was held to be realizable and affordable on account of a paramount
factor characterizing the aftermath of the late nineteen-century series
of Abdul Hamid era massacres, i.e. impunity. It is precisely for this
reason that it is impossible to fully grasp the World War I Armenian
Genocide without fully taking into account this problem of impunity
attending the antecedents of that Genocide.
Commenting on the courts-martial that were held in the
period between 1919 and 1922, Dadrian offers the following comment
The criminal prosecution of high-ranking state functionaries, and
government officials identified with the Ittihad political party, was
a highly noteworthy event. It was likewise remarkable that prominent
Turkish witnesses testified for the benefit of Armenian victims as
they demanded punitive justice for the criminally incriminated
perpetrators. It was likewise most remarkable that for the first time
in Ottoman-Turkish high-ranking politicians and military officers, in
total disregard of the risks involved, dared to testify on behalf of
the Armenian victims.
There is much semblance between these courts-martial, on the
one hand, and the contemporary Ergenekon trial series in the modern
Republic of Turkey, on the other. The Armistice-period Turkish liberal
press rather extensively covered these courts-martial proceedings,
especially Sabah, Alemdar, Hadisat, Ileri, Ikdam, Zaman and Yeni Gazete.
Counterposed to these, were a band of those newspapers that were
identified with or sympathetic to Ittihad. The fact remains, however,
that the disinformation and the slanders they put forth could not
minimize the critical import of the layout of original official
documents and first-hand eyewitness accounts.
From: A. Papazian