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TURKISH PROFESSOR UNMASKS TURKEY'S CRIMINAL SECRETS, OUTLINES THE EIGHT PHASES OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
MARCH 14, 2013
Appo Jabarian
Executive Publisher / Managing Editor
USA Armenian Life Magazine
MARCH 14, 2013
Ankara is fast at work to counter the wave of intra-national and
international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. But is it
successful?
Recently a damning Turkish documentary surfaced on Youtube.com
unmasking the eight phases of the 1915-1923 genocide.
Professor Ugur Umit Ungör, a lecturer at the Department of History
at Utrecht University and at the Institute for War, Holocaust, and
Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, revealed the Turkish-documented inner
workings of Turkish-masterminded and executed government policies
of mass deportations, dispossession, and annihilation against the
Armenians then living under Ottoman yoke.
Personally I watched it at least half a dozen times. In the documentary
Prof. Ungor clearly outlines the damning details of Turkey's secret
plans to exterminate the Armenians and to expropriate their real and
personal properties as well as their ancestral homelands in Western
Armenia.
Professor Ungor, author of the "Confiscation and Destruction: The
Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property (Continuum, 2011)" and the
award-winning "The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern
Anatolia, 1913-1950 (Oxford University Press, 2011)," elaborated on
"how Western Armenia became part of Turkish nation state. And he went
on to illustrate how "the confiscation of the properties of Armenians"
was carried out. He underlined the fact that "This process hasn't
really been studied."
He contrasted it to other mass murders and genocides, "such as the
Holocaust, the genocide in Bosnia and the one in Rwanda."
He went on: "The genocide was not one process. It was not just
deportations; just massacres. But it was a whole range of destruction
policies and I count at least eight of them. Then I'll move on to
discuss some of the laws such as confiscation, expropriation, and
finally I would like to give an example of one Armenian business that
was expropriated by Ottoman Young Turk government. .. In several cases
(the processes) overlapping one another ... geared into each other,
they work together to produce the intended process of destruction."
Then he went on to list the eight phases of the Armenian Genocide.
1) Firing of all Armenian civil servants in the Ottoman Empire
"Starting in early winter 1914, Talaat Pasha fired all the Armenian
civil servants in the Empire starting with the police officers, civil
servants, firemen, teachers - primary school teachers secondary school
teachers,. All Armenians were fired from the Turkish bureaucracy,"
noted Prof. Ungor.
2) Decapitation "Talaat and company then moved on to the second phase
of the process which was decapitation, and this was of course the
infamous arrests of April 24, 1915 paving the way to the complete
decapitation of the Armenian elite in Istanbul and was replicated in
the provinces," he said.
He continued: "I'd like to say two things and I think this is extremely
important, first of all these were extremely systematic; there were
lists of the men to be arrested and executed and of course these
lists were sent back to Istanbul for corroboration. Secondly this
was extremely a fast process. Time flies especially in the Armenian
Genocide. In matter of weeks complete elite of the Armenian community
of the Empire - cultural intelligentsia; economic intelligentsia;
religious intelligentsia were destroyed."
Then he showed two photographs, the first one depicting Krikor Zohrab,
a famous writer, an Ottoman Armenian member of the Ottoman Parliament
headquartered in Istanbul; the second depicting Mikael Khachaturian,
the Bishop of Malatya.
Then he drew sharp contrasts between the two men: "It was interesting
to study the biographies of two very different men.- Krikor Zohrab,
very critical of the church and very liberal; and Bishop Khachaturian,
a very pious, very spiritual and strong believer in the Christian
faith. Both of them were arrested. Both of them were murdered. I think
this is quite important -- two very different individuals that have
nothing in common except for the fact that they were Armenians. And
this is the essence of the genocide - reducing people to their ethnic
identity."
3) "The third phase was heralded through the deportations. On 23 May,
exactly one month after the massive arrests of the elite, Talaat Pasha
ordered complete deportation of all Armenians into the Syrian desert
of Deir-ez-Zor. And this is also important because this order was
published and we found the official document in the Ottoman archives in
which they ordered this and which in itself is a genocidal order for
the complete deportation of the civilian population into the desert,"
he underlined.
4) "The fourth phase was the dispossession process. Between May and
November 1915, Talaat Pasha issued four decrees in the form of laws
-- and of course they had nothing to do with the laws. For laws, you
need to have a legal process; separation of powers. That was not the
case because it was a dictatorship. He began with a deportation order
and the first order which was about deporting all of the Armenians
contained provision that Armenians could bring along everything they
wanted. 'So you have a house; you have lands to sell. You can take
the money with you and then you can go to the Deir-ez-Zor where you
will be resettled.' That sounded promising.
But then of course the new decrees reversed this policy. In June
1915, the government established Abandoned Property Commissions and
these were really organizations to assault the Armenian economy. With
one decision, all of the properties were officially handed over or
transferred to the government. So they took the decision and they
had to fine tune it so they took more decisions. One in September
1915, when they delegated the implementation of this huge plan
to three ministries - the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of
Finance and the Ministry of Justice because they understood that
this is a huge process. And who's going to organize it? These three
ministries! And they of course had a record of all these properties
and they corresponded among each other. And we have correspondences.
They are in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. I looked at them
extensively," he asserted.
5) "The fifth phase was mass murder. From the summer of 1915 on,
the special units began murdering Armenian civilians throughout
the Empire. So far we had very little information of these men of
the organization "Tashkilat al Mahsusa". What kind of organization
was this? How was it set up? I found this document - a photo in the
archives of the Ottoman government. It was interesting to see that
all of them were dressed in the same uniforms. And secondly, even
more important, they're standing in front of the War Ministry in
Istanbul. So no longer can the government say that we have nothing
to do with these - with "chetes" (Turkish- armed bandits) running
wild, and posing for photographs in front of the war ministry. The
building still exists. It is now converted into a military museum in
Istanbul. And the list goes on," he added.
6) "The sixth phase of the genocide was forced assimilation. The
absorption of women and children into the Turkish households. This is
also significant in the genocidal process because it was an assault
on cultural identity of people. By making sure that people could not
reproduce; could not continue to perpetuate their identity. It is an
assault on an abstract idea of culture embodied in these individuals.
This is the essence of what genocide is. Men were separated from
women. Children were separated from their parents breaking up the
most essential ties in human beings," he further noted.
7) "Then we had the seventh phase of the genocide - the famine
crime. Starting in 1916 on those Armenians were forced into Deir-ez-Zor
and were pushed into organized artificial famine zones.
People were put into the region where (the Turkish soldiers) prohibited
bread from reaching the victims. And this is extremely important. You
can distinguish what makes it genocidal. The Turkish people that were
living in Deir-ez-Zor were given bread. The Armenians were prohibited
to buy bread. Why did they do that? Of course there is no question
about the intention behind this policy.
And I'm still not finished," he emphasized.
8) "The final phase of the genocide was the assault on material
culture and architecture. Starting from 1915 on there was a policy
that was continued well into the 1920â~@²s when the Turkish government
continued destroying churches and monasteries. And here's only one
example: Sourp Hovhannes (monastery) in Alashkert (he showed an old
photo depicting the church in Alashkert on the left and also showed
a new photo of the same location depicting a destroyed church then he
said: "And what is left of the monastery was the foundation only. And
you can clearly see that this is the same place. Some of my students
have asked me, how to know if this is the same place? He responded:
"I'll show it to you. The black stripe here in the mountain (in the
background of the church), and these are the foundations of this
monastery," he illustrated.
Speaking of the entire eight processes he said: "Together and only
together they produce a coherent process of destruction. By the end of
the war there were approximately 2900 Armenian settlements that were
depopulated by about a million Armenians because they were dead. I'd
like to move on to the dispossession policy. These eight phases have
to be studied and in fact they are studied in details."
I must acknowledge that this article in no way is an adequate report on
the monumental work done by Prof. Ungor. Watch the video on Youtube.com
at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6_InAhUmmM. The
presentation is in English with Turkish subtitles. Please share it with
your friends. One needs to get further acquainted with Prof. Ungor's
works in order to grasp the magnitude of his revelations.
As well-informed members of the new Turkish generation emerge,
denialist Turks see the walls of silence falling around them.
http://www.armenianlife.com/2013/03/14/turkish-professor-unmasks-turkey%E2%8
0%99s-criminal-secrets-outlines-the-eight-phases-of-the-armenian-genocide/
From: A. Papazian
MARCH 14, 2013
Appo Jabarian
Executive Publisher / Managing Editor
USA Armenian Life Magazine
MARCH 14, 2013
Ankara is fast at work to counter the wave of intra-national and
international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. But is it
successful?
Recently a damning Turkish documentary surfaced on Youtube.com
unmasking the eight phases of the 1915-1923 genocide.
Professor Ugur Umit Ungör, a lecturer at the Department of History
at Utrecht University and at the Institute for War, Holocaust, and
Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, revealed the Turkish-documented inner
workings of Turkish-masterminded and executed government policies
of mass deportations, dispossession, and annihilation against the
Armenians then living under Ottoman yoke.
Personally I watched it at least half a dozen times. In the documentary
Prof. Ungor clearly outlines the damning details of Turkey's secret
plans to exterminate the Armenians and to expropriate their real and
personal properties as well as their ancestral homelands in Western
Armenia.
Professor Ungor, author of the "Confiscation and Destruction: The
Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property (Continuum, 2011)" and the
award-winning "The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern
Anatolia, 1913-1950 (Oxford University Press, 2011)," elaborated on
"how Western Armenia became part of Turkish nation state. And he went
on to illustrate how "the confiscation of the properties of Armenians"
was carried out. He underlined the fact that "This process hasn't
really been studied."
He contrasted it to other mass murders and genocides, "such as the
Holocaust, the genocide in Bosnia and the one in Rwanda."
He went on: "The genocide was not one process. It was not just
deportations; just massacres. But it was a whole range of destruction
policies and I count at least eight of them. Then I'll move on to
discuss some of the laws such as confiscation, expropriation, and
finally I would like to give an example of one Armenian business that
was expropriated by Ottoman Young Turk government. .. In several cases
(the processes) overlapping one another ... geared into each other,
they work together to produce the intended process of destruction."
Then he went on to list the eight phases of the Armenian Genocide.
1) Firing of all Armenian civil servants in the Ottoman Empire
"Starting in early winter 1914, Talaat Pasha fired all the Armenian
civil servants in the Empire starting with the police officers, civil
servants, firemen, teachers - primary school teachers secondary school
teachers,. All Armenians were fired from the Turkish bureaucracy,"
noted Prof. Ungor.
2) Decapitation "Talaat and company then moved on to the second phase
of the process which was decapitation, and this was of course the
infamous arrests of April 24, 1915 paving the way to the complete
decapitation of the Armenian elite in Istanbul and was replicated in
the provinces," he said.
He continued: "I'd like to say two things and I think this is extremely
important, first of all these were extremely systematic; there were
lists of the men to be arrested and executed and of course these
lists were sent back to Istanbul for corroboration. Secondly this
was extremely a fast process. Time flies especially in the Armenian
Genocide. In matter of weeks complete elite of the Armenian community
of the Empire - cultural intelligentsia; economic intelligentsia;
religious intelligentsia were destroyed."
Then he showed two photographs, the first one depicting Krikor Zohrab,
a famous writer, an Ottoman Armenian member of the Ottoman Parliament
headquartered in Istanbul; the second depicting Mikael Khachaturian,
the Bishop of Malatya.
Then he drew sharp contrasts between the two men: "It was interesting
to study the biographies of two very different men.- Krikor Zohrab,
very critical of the church and very liberal; and Bishop Khachaturian,
a very pious, very spiritual and strong believer in the Christian
faith. Both of them were arrested. Both of them were murdered. I think
this is quite important -- two very different individuals that have
nothing in common except for the fact that they were Armenians. And
this is the essence of the genocide - reducing people to their ethnic
identity."
3) "The third phase was heralded through the deportations. On 23 May,
exactly one month after the massive arrests of the elite, Talaat Pasha
ordered complete deportation of all Armenians into the Syrian desert
of Deir-ez-Zor. And this is also important because this order was
published and we found the official document in the Ottoman archives in
which they ordered this and which in itself is a genocidal order for
the complete deportation of the civilian population into the desert,"
he underlined.
4) "The fourth phase was the dispossession process. Between May and
November 1915, Talaat Pasha issued four decrees in the form of laws
-- and of course they had nothing to do with the laws. For laws, you
need to have a legal process; separation of powers. That was not the
case because it was a dictatorship. He began with a deportation order
and the first order which was about deporting all of the Armenians
contained provision that Armenians could bring along everything they
wanted. 'So you have a house; you have lands to sell. You can take
the money with you and then you can go to the Deir-ez-Zor where you
will be resettled.' That sounded promising.
But then of course the new decrees reversed this policy. In June
1915, the government established Abandoned Property Commissions and
these were really organizations to assault the Armenian economy. With
one decision, all of the properties were officially handed over or
transferred to the government. So they took the decision and they
had to fine tune it so they took more decisions. One in September
1915, when they delegated the implementation of this huge plan
to three ministries - the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of
Finance and the Ministry of Justice because they understood that
this is a huge process. And who's going to organize it? These three
ministries! And they of course had a record of all these properties
and they corresponded among each other. And we have correspondences.
They are in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. I looked at them
extensively," he asserted.
5) "The fifth phase was mass murder. From the summer of 1915 on,
the special units began murdering Armenian civilians throughout
the Empire. So far we had very little information of these men of
the organization "Tashkilat al Mahsusa". What kind of organization
was this? How was it set up? I found this document - a photo in the
archives of the Ottoman government. It was interesting to see that
all of them were dressed in the same uniforms. And secondly, even
more important, they're standing in front of the War Ministry in
Istanbul. So no longer can the government say that we have nothing
to do with these - with "chetes" (Turkish- armed bandits) running
wild, and posing for photographs in front of the war ministry. The
building still exists. It is now converted into a military museum in
Istanbul. And the list goes on," he added.
6) "The sixth phase of the genocide was forced assimilation. The
absorption of women and children into the Turkish households. This is
also significant in the genocidal process because it was an assault
on cultural identity of people. By making sure that people could not
reproduce; could not continue to perpetuate their identity. It is an
assault on an abstract idea of culture embodied in these individuals.
This is the essence of what genocide is. Men were separated from
women. Children were separated from their parents breaking up the
most essential ties in human beings," he further noted.
7) "Then we had the seventh phase of the genocide - the famine
crime. Starting in 1916 on those Armenians were forced into Deir-ez-Zor
and were pushed into organized artificial famine zones.
People were put into the region where (the Turkish soldiers) prohibited
bread from reaching the victims. And this is extremely important. You
can distinguish what makes it genocidal. The Turkish people that were
living in Deir-ez-Zor were given bread. The Armenians were prohibited
to buy bread. Why did they do that? Of course there is no question
about the intention behind this policy.
And I'm still not finished," he emphasized.
8) "The final phase of the genocide was the assault on material
culture and architecture. Starting from 1915 on there was a policy
that was continued well into the 1920â~@²s when the Turkish government
continued destroying churches and monasteries. And here's only one
example: Sourp Hovhannes (monastery) in Alashkert (he showed an old
photo depicting the church in Alashkert on the left and also showed
a new photo of the same location depicting a destroyed church then he
said: "And what is left of the monastery was the foundation only. And
you can clearly see that this is the same place. Some of my students
have asked me, how to know if this is the same place? He responded:
"I'll show it to you. The black stripe here in the mountain (in the
background of the church), and these are the foundations of this
monastery," he illustrated.
Speaking of the entire eight processes he said: "Together and only
together they produce a coherent process of destruction. By the end of
the war there were approximately 2900 Armenian settlements that were
depopulated by about a million Armenians because they were dead. I'd
like to move on to the dispossession policy. These eight phases have
to be studied and in fact they are studied in details."
I must acknowledge that this article in no way is an adequate report on
the monumental work done by Prof. Ungor. Watch the video on Youtube.com
at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6_InAhUmmM. The
presentation is in English with Turkish subtitles. Please share it with
your friends. One needs to get further acquainted with Prof. Ungor's
works in order to grasp the magnitude of his revelations.
As well-informed members of the new Turkish generation emerge,
denialist Turks see the walls of silence falling around them.
http://www.armenianlife.com/2013/03/14/turkish-professor-unmasks-turkey%E2%8
0%99s-criminal-secrets-outlines-the-eight-phases-of-the-armenian-genocide/
From: A. Papazian