The Pontian Greeks lived along the Black Sea coast of Turkey in a region loosely referred to as Pontus by many scholars. They were descendants of Ionian Greeks who settled there, beginning in 800 B.C. Like other Christians in Turkey, the Armenians and Assyrians for example, the Pontic Greeks faced persecution and suffered during ethnic cleansing at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1923, after thousands of years, those remaining were expelled from Turkey to Greece as part of the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey under Treaty of Lausanne.
May 19 has been recognized by the Greek parliament as the day of remembrance of the Pontian Greek Genocide by the Turks. There are various estimates of the toll. Records kept mainly by priests show a minimum 350,000 Pontian Greeks exterminated through systematic slaughter by Turkish troops and Kurdish irregulars. Other estimates, including those of foreign missionaries, spoke of 500,000 deaths, most through deportation and forced marches into the Anatolian desert interior. Thriving Greek cities like Bafra, Samsous, Kerasous, and Trapezous, at the heart of Pontian Hellenism on the coast of the Black Sea, endured recurring massacres and deportations that eventually destroyed their Greek population. The genocide started with the order in 1914 for all Pontian men between the ages of 18 and 50 to report for military duty. Those who "refused" or "failed" to appear, the order provided, were to be summarily shot. The immediate result of this decree was the murder of thousands of the more prominent Pontians, whose names appeared on lists of "undesirables" already prepared by the Young Turk regime.
Thousands ended up in the notorious Labor Battalions. In a precursor of what was to become a favorite practice in Hitler's extermination camps, Pontian men were driven from their homes into the wilderness to perform hard labor and expire from exhaustion, thirst, and disease. German advisors of the Turkish regime suggested that Pontian populations be forced into internal exile. This "advise" led directly to the emptying of hundreds of Pontian villages and the forced march of women, children, and old people to nowhere. The details of this systematic slaughter of the Pontians by the Turks were dutifully recorded by both German and Austrian diplomats.
The Pontians did try to organize armed resistance. Pontian guerrilla bands had appeared in the mountains of Santa as early as 1916. Brave leaders, like Capitan Stylianos Kosmidis, even hoisted the flag of an independent Pontus in the hope of help from Greece and Russia (which never arrived). The struggle was unequal. The Turkish army, assisted by the Tsets, who were of mostly Kurdish extraction, attacked and destroyed undefended Pontian villages. On May 19, 1919, Mustafa Kemal himself disembarked at Samsous to begin organizing the final phase of the Pontian genocide. Assisted by his German advisers, and surrounded by his own band of killers -- monsters like Topal Osman, Refet Bey, Ismet Inonu, and Talaat Pasha -- the founder of "modern" Turkey applied himself to the destruction of the Pontian Greeks. With the Greek army engaged in Anatolia, a new wave of deportations, mass killings, and "preventative" executions destroyed the remnants of Pontian Hellenism. The plan worked with deadly precision. In the Amasia province alone, with a pre-war population of some 180,000, records show a final tally of 134,000 people liquidated
In 1923, a population exchange negotiated by the participants resulted in a near-complete elimination of the Greek ethnic presence in Anatolia. It is impossible to know exactly how many Greek inhabitants of Pontus, Smyrna and rest of Asia Minor died from 1916 to 1923, and how many ethnic Greeks of Anatolia were deported to Greece or fled to the Soviet Union. According to G.W. Rendel, " ... over 500,000 Greeks were deported of whom comparatively few survived.
U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau accused the "Turkish government" of a campaign of "outrageous terrorizing, cruel torturing, driving of women into harems, debauchery of innocent girls, the sale of many of them at 80 cents each, the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to and starvation in the desert of other hundreds of thousands, and the destruction of hundreds of villages and many cities," all part of "the willful execution" of a "scheme to annihilate the Armenian, Greek and Syrian Christians of Turkey." US Consul-General George Horton reported that "one of the cleverest statements circulated by the Turkish propagandists is to the effect that the massacred Christians were as bad as their executioners, that it was “50-50.”" On this issue he clarifies that "had the Greeks, after the massacres in the Pon*tus and at Smyrna, massacred all the Turks in Greece, the record would have been 50-50—almost." As an eye-witness, he also praises Greeks for their "conduct toward the thousands of Turks residing in Greece, while the ferocious massacres were going on.", which, according to his opinion, was "one of the most inspiring and beautiful chapters in all that country’s history."
A number of Pontians wrote about their experiences and recorded in memoirs or simple testimonies the nightmarish events that they had lived through. The most famous of these was Elias Venezis with his book entitled: "The Number 31328," which chronicled his servitude in a Labor Battalion . One eyewitness who survived the genocide and settled in Greece was Savas Kantartzis. The following is his vivid description of the massacre of the inhabitants of his native village of Beyeilan in the region of Kotyron in Pontus, by a paramilitary unit led by Topal Osman, now honored as a national hero of modern Turkey. The tragedy of this village is the tragedy of hundreds of other Greek villages and thousands of Greeks, in Chios in 1821, in Pontus in 1916, in Asia Minor in 1922, in Constantinople in 1955 or in occupied Cyprus in 1974...
“At daybreak, on Wednesday, the 16th of February, 1922, a nightmare begins. News spread that Tsets (Kurdish irregulars) lead by Topal Osman are coming to our village. Everyone is frightened and apprehensive. Some men hurriedly escaped into the surrounding forest, others hid in special hiding places in their homes or stables, all well camouflaged. Women, children and the elderly locked themselves in their homes, hearts pounding and awaiting their fates. More than 150 Tsets, entered the village yelling and shooting. followed by villagers bent on plunder from the neighboring Turkish villages.
As soon as they entered the village, the atmosphere was electrified and the horizon darkened as if a storm was approaching. They screamed curses and kicked doors in, ordering the inhabitants out into the village square. They threatened to set fire to the houses unless everyone came out. In a short time, women, children and the old ones found themselves crying and trembling in the streets. They sensed what would happen to them and many attempted to escape. The Turks and Tsets had foreseen such an eventuality and had blocked every avenue of escape. No one could leave. A few were shot and fell dead or limped back wounded.
These men revealed, once and for all, their criminal intent and it was now apparent to the entire terrorized group of women and children that had been thrown into the streets, their cries rising in despair.Nothing they did now could soften the hardhearted cruelty of the henchman that had been chosen by Topal Osman for this “patriotic” expedition. These sadists began to enjoy the great fun of inflicting pain and torturing their victims. They kicked, struck, and yelled, pushing them toward the village square.
The mothers, stood pale and disheveled in the bitter cold, trembling with fear while holding their clinging infants in close embrace. The young girls, some with their old parents and others with old women or holding up the sick, were herded like sheep, ready for slaughter, into the middle of a pandemonium punctuated by heart-breaking cries and lamentations. Then they ordered their victims to enter two pre-selected houses in the vicinity of the square where they could complete their crime. They herded this unwilling flock into the houses with kicks and shouts. There was no doubt now about the fate that awaited them. The Tsets crammed over three hundred into those houses, anxious to finish their macabre enterprise. When they were sure that no one remained outside, they locked the doors oblivious to the cacophony of cries and supplications for mercy that reverberated in the surrounding mountains and forests.
The final phase of this tragic event needed only a few handfuls of dry grass set alight to create a firestorm that engulfed the two houses in bloodcurdling screams through the pungent black smoke. What followed during the next hour cannot be adequately described…
Crazed mothers clutched tightly, with the all the force of their souls, their crying babies to their bosom. Children cried for their mothers. The girls and the other women with the elderly, the children and the sick, screamed and seized each other as if they wanted to take and give the other courage and help until their hair, clothes and bodies were engulfed by the flames. Piercing cries, maniacal screams and thunderous, wild howls of people, overcome by terror and pain. They beat and flayed the air and the walls to no avail. Hell on earth!
Some women and girls, in their despair and pain, threw themselves out of windows, preferring death from the bullets to the blazing inferno. Osman's men who looked on smiling, enjoying the spectacle before them, were more than happy to accommodate these poor women by shooting them dead. The screaming began to dwindle, replaced by the noise of the crackling timbers and the crumbling walls falling on the smoldering bodies. Nothing remained but the ash and ruins of what used to be two homes in the town of Beyialan.
The tragedy of this village, described in all its horrific details, was repeated in other Christian villages throughout Turkey. We pay bitter homage to our dead without hate or vengeful thoughts but we should not forget their sacrifice or let the nation who murdered them forget its crime.
Rudy Pontian
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
GENOCIDE of the PONTIAN GREEKS
Pontus means "sea" in Greek and is located in the south-eastern littoral of the Black Sea. Its connection with Hellenism stretches back to pre-historic times to the legends of Jason and the Argonauts quest for the Golden Fleece and to Heracles obtaining the Amazon Queen's girdle. The coastal region was colonised by the Ionians, especially the city of Miletus which founded Sinope (785 BC), Trapezunta (756 BC) and the numerous other cities along the coast from Heracleia to Discurias in the Caucasus. The Hinterland was gradually Hellenised and this was completed after Alexander's conquests. Its contribution to Hellenism in those 2800 years has been enormous: Diogenes hailed from Sinope and Strabo from Amaseia, it was here that Xenophon found a safe haven, that the great Comneni dynasty reigned, the home of Cardinal Bessarion and the Hypsilandis family; it was also the last Greek territory to fall to the Turks (in 1461). Many famous churches, monasteries and schools are a testament to the resilience of Hellenism. The Pontians are a distinct Greek people with their own dialect, dances, songs and theatre.
For the Pontian Greeks all ended in tragedy in the years 1914-22. Of the 700,000 Greeks living in Pontus in 1914, 300,000 were killed as a result of Turkish government policy and the remainder became refugees. Three millenia of the Greek presence was wiped out by a deliberate policy of creating a Turkey for the Turks. The Pontian people were denied the right to exist, the right of respect for their national and cultural identity, and the right to remain on land they had lived on for countless generations.
The turning point in the treatment of Greeks in Turkey was the alliance between Germany and the Sultan that commenced after the Treaty of Berlin 1878. Germany regarded Anglo French protection of Christians as an obstacle to its interests and convinced the Turkish authorities that the Greeks were working for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Germany opened the Berlin Academy to Turkish military officers and General Gotz was appointed to restructure the Ottoman armed forces. The successful national movements in the Balkans posed a threat that the same would occur in Asia Minor. After the Balkan Wars the Young Turks decided that Asia Minor would be a homeland for Turks alone and that the Greeks and Armenians had to be eliminated. The outbreak of World War I made this possible and Germany willingly sacrificed the Christian minorities to achieve its aim in the Middle East. However, it is the German and Austrian diplomats reports that confirm that what took place was a systematic and deliberate extermination of the Christian population. Genocide. Not security or defence measures, not relocations of population (why forcibly relocate populations?) not war, not retaliation in response to the activities of Pontian guerillas or Russian invasion but GENOCIDE.
Terrorism, labour battalions, exiles, forced marches, rapes, hangings, fires, murders, planned, directed and executed by the Turkish authorities. This can be corroborated by the German and Austrian archives now made public:
24 July 1909 German Ambassador in Athens Wangenheim to Chancellor Bulow quoting Turkish Prime Minister Sefker Pasha: "The Turks have decided upon a war of extermination against their Christian subjects."
26 July 1909 Sefker Pasha visited Patriarch Ioakeim III and tells him: "we will cut off your heads, we will make you disappear. It is either you or us who will survive."
14 May 1914 Official document from Talaat Bey Minister of the Interior to Prefect of Smyrna: The Greeks, who are Ottoman subjects, and form the majority of inhabitants in your district, take advantage of the circumstances in order to provoke a revolutionary current, favourable to the intervention of the Great Powers. Consequently, it is urgently necessary that the Greeks occupying the coast-line of Asia Minor be compelled to evacuate their villages and install themselves in the vilayets of Erzerum and Chaldea. If they should refuse to be transported to the appointed places, kindly give instructions to our Moslem brothers, so that they shall induce the Greeks, through excesses of all sorts, to leave their native places of their own accord. Do not forget to obtain, in such cases, from the emigrants certificates stating that they leave their homes on their own initiative, so that we shall not have political complications ensuing from their displacement.
31 July 1915 German priest J. Lepsius: "The anti-Greek and anti-Armenian persecutions are two phases of one programme - the extermination of the Christian element from Turkey.
16 July 1916 German Consul Kuchhoff from Amisos to Berlin: "The entire Greek population of Sinope and the coastal region of the county of Kastanome has been exiled. Exile and extermination in Turkish are the same, for whoever is not murdered, will die from hunger or illness."
30 November 1916 Austrian consul at Amisos Kwiatkowski to Austria Foreign Minister Baron Burian: "on 26 November Rafet Bey told me: "we must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians . . . on 28 November. Rafet Bey told me: "today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight." I fear for the elimination of the entire Greek population and a repeat of what occurred last year" (meaning the Armenian genocide).
13 December 1916 German Ambassador Kuhlman to Chancellor Hollweg in Berlin: "Consuls Bergfeld in Samsun and Schede in Kerasun report of displacement of local population and murders. Prisoners are not kept. Villages reduced to ashes. Greek refugee families consisting mostly of women and children being marched from the coasts to Sebasteia. The need is great."
19 December 1916 Austrian Ambassador to Turkey Pallavicini to Vienna lists the villages in the region of Amisos that were being burnt to the ground and their inhabitants raped, murdered or dispersed.
20 January 1917 Austrian Ambassador Pallavicini: "the situation for the displaced is desperate. Death awaits them all. I spoke to the Grand Vizier and told him that it would be sad if the persecution of the Greek element took the same scope and dimension as the Armenia persecution. The Grand Vizier promised that he would influence Talaat Bey and Emver Pasha."
31 January 1917 Austrian Chancellor Hollweg's report: ". . . the indications are that the Turks plan to eliminate the Greek element as enemies of the state, as they did earlier with the Armenians. The strategy implemented by the Turks is of displacing people to the interior without taking measures for their survival by exposing them to death, hunger and illness. The abandoned homes are then looted and burnt or destroyed. Whatever was done to the Armenians is being repeated with the Greeks.
Thus, by government decree 1,500,000 Armenians and 300,000 Pontian Greeks were annihilated through exile, starvation, cold, illness, slaughter, murder, gallows, axe, and fire. Those who survived fled never to return. The Pontians now lie scattered all over the world as a result of the genocide and their unique history, language (the dialect is a valuable link between ancient and modern Greek), and culture are endangered and face extinction.
A double crime was committed - genocide and the uprooting of a people from their ancestral homelands of three millenia. The Christian nations were not only witnesses to this horrible and monstrous crime, which remains unpunished, but for reasons of political expediency and self interest have, by their silence, pardoned the criminal. The Ottoman and Kemalist Turks were responsible for the genocide of the Pontian people, the most heinous of all crimes according to international law. The international community must recognise this crime.
Rudy Pontian
For the Pontian Greeks all ended in tragedy in the years 1914-22. Of the 700,000 Greeks living in Pontus in 1914, 300,000 were killed as a result of Turkish government policy and the remainder became refugees. Three millenia of the Greek presence was wiped out by a deliberate policy of creating a Turkey for the Turks. The Pontian people were denied the right to exist, the right of respect for their national and cultural identity, and the right to remain on land they had lived on for countless generations.
The turning point in the treatment of Greeks in Turkey was the alliance between Germany and the Sultan that commenced after the Treaty of Berlin 1878. Germany regarded Anglo French protection of Christians as an obstacle to its interests and convinced the Turkish authorities that the Greeks were working for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Germany opened the Berlin Academy to Turkish military officers and General Gotz was appointed to restructure the Ottoman armed forces. The successful national movements in the Balkans posed a threat that the same would occur in Asia Minor. After the Balkan Wars the Young Turks decided that Asia Minor would be a homeland for Turks alone and that the Greeks and Armenians had to be eliminated. The outbreak of World War I made this possible and Germany willingly sacrificed the Christian minorities to achieve its aim in the Middle East. However, it is the German and Austrian diplomats reports that confirm that what took place was a systematic and deliberate extermination of the Christian population. Genocide. Not security or defence measures, not relocations of population (why forcibly relocate populations?) not war, not retaliation in response to the activities of Pontian guerillas or Russian invasion but GENOCIDE.
Terrorism, labour battalions, exiles, forced marches, rapes, hangings, fires, murders, planned, directed and executed by the Turkish authorities. This can be corroborated by the German and Austrian archives now made public:
24 July 1909 German Ambassador in Athens Wangenheim to Chancellor Bulow quoting Turkish Prime Minister Sefker Pasha: "The Turks have decided upon a war of extermination against their Christian subjects."
26 July 1909 Sefker Pasha visited Patriarch Ioakeim III and tells him: "we will cut off your heads, we will make you disappear. It is either you or us who will survive."
14 May 1914 Official document from Talaat Bey Minister of the Interior to Prefect of Smyrna: The Greeks, who are Ottoman subjects, and form the majority of inhabitants in your district, take advantage of the circumstances in order to provoke a revolutionary current, favourable to the intervention of the Great Powers. Consequently, it is urgently necessary that the Greeks occupying the coast-line of Asia Minor be compelled to evacuate their villages and install themselves in the vilayets of Erzerum and Chaldea. If they should refuse to be transported to the appointed places, kindly give instructions to our Moslem brothers, so that they shall induce the Greeks, through excesses of all sorts, to leave their native places of their own accord. Do not forget to obtain, in such cases, from the emigrants certificates stating that they leave their homes on their own initiative, so that we shall not have political complications ensuing from their displacement.
31 July 1915 German priest J. Lepsius: "The anti-Greek and anti-Armenian persecutions are two phases of one programme - the extermination of the Christian element from Turkey.
16 July 1916 German Consul Kuchhoff from Amisos to Berlin: "The entire Greek population of Sinope and the coastal region of the county of Kastanome has been exiled. Exile and extermination in Turkish are the same, for whoever is not murdered, will die from hunger or illness."
30 November 1916 Austrian consul at Amisos Kwiatkowski to Austria Foreign Minister Baron Burian: "on 26 November Rafet Bey told me: "we must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians . . . on 28 November. Rafet Bey told me: "today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight." I fear for the elimination of the entire Greek population and a repeat of what occurred last year" (meaning the Armenian genocide).
13 December 1916 German Ambassador Kuhlman to Chancellor Hollweg in Berlin: "Consuls Bergfeld in Samsun and Schede in Kerasun report of displacement of local population and murders. Prisoners are not kept. Villages reduced to ashes. Greek refugee families consisting mostly of women and children being marched from the coasts to Sebasteia. The need is great."
19 December 1916 Austrian Ambassador to Turkey Pallavicini to Vienna lists the villages in the region of Amisos that were being burnt to the ground and their inhabitants raped, murdered or dispersed.
20 January 1917 Austrian Ambassador Pallavicini: "the situation for the displaced is desperate. Death awaits them all. I spoke to the Grand Vizier and told him that it would be sad if the persecution of the Greek element took the same scope and dimension as the Armenia persecution. The Grand Vizier promised that he would influence Talaat Bey and Emver Pasha."
31 January 1917 Austrian Chancellor Hollweg's report: ". . . the indications are that the Turks plan to eliminate the Greek element as enemies of the state, as they did earlier with the Armenians. The strategy implemented by the Turks is of displacing people to the interior without taking measures for their survival by exposing them to death, hunger and illness. The abandoned homes are then looted and burnt or destroyed. Whatever was done to the Armenians is being repeated with the Greeks.
Thus, by government decree 1,500,000 Armenians and 300,000 Pontian Greeks were annihilated through exile, starvation, cold, illness, slaughter, murder, gallows, axe, and fire. Those who survived fled never to return. The Pontians now lie scattered all over the world as a result of the genocide and their unique history, language (the dialect is a valuable link between ancient and modern Greek), and culture are endangered and face extinction.
A double crime was committed - genocide and the uprooting of a people from their ancestral homelands of three millenia. The Christian nations were not only witnesses to this horrible and monstrous crime, which remains unpunished, but for reasons of political expediency and self interest have, by their silence, pardoned the criminal. The Ottoman and Kemalist Turks were responsible for the genocide of the Pontian people, the most heinous of all crimes according to international law. The international community must recognise this crime.
Rudy Pontian
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Genocide. The motion to Genocide. Swedish Parliament
The motion to Genocide Resolution approved by Swedish Parliament on March 11.
1 Proposal for Parliament Decision
1. The Parliament announces to the government its decision in reference to what is stated in the motion regarding Sweden recognizing the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks.
2. The Parliament announces to the government its decision in reference to what is stated in the motion that Sweden should act within EU and UN for an international recognition of the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks.
3. The Parliament announces to the government its decision in reference to what is stated in the motion that Sweden should act for Turkey to recognize the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks.
2 Background
“Forum for living history is an authority which has the mission to – with basis in the Holocaust – work with issues which concern tolerance, democracy and human rights. By illuminating the darkest pieces of the human history we want to affect the future.”
So reads the description of an agency which works on mission by order of the Swedish Government and educates, among others, about the 1915 genocide. The lesson of history is one of the cornerstones of the present-day democracies where we have learned of our mistakes and by preventing repetition of earlier errors we strive for a better future. However, a prevention of future missteps, especially if these are known from the history, can not be implemented if one does not openly recognizes committed errors. Thus, history revisionism is a dangerous tool for facilitating repetition of the dark pages of the history.
The 1915 genocide foremost engulfed Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks, but later came to also affect other minorities. It was the dream of a large Turanic Empire, Great Turan, which caused the Turkish leaders wanting to ethnically homogenize the remains of the decaying Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 19th century. This was achieved under the cover of the ongoing world war, when the Armenian, Assyrian/Syrian/Chaldean and Pontic Greek population of the empire were, almost entirely, annihilated. Researchers estimate that about 1,500,000 Armenians, between 250,000 and 500,000 Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and about 350,000 Pontic Greeks have been killed or disappeared.
During the short period following the Turkish defeat in 1918 until the time when the Turkish nationalistic movement, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, the genocide was discussed openly. Political and military leaders stood on trial, accused for “war crimes” and “committed crimes against humanity”. Several of them were found guilty and sentenced to the death or prison. During these trials horrible details about the persecution of the minorities in the Ottoman Empire were reveled. Thus, Turkey went through the same phase as the one Germany experienced after the Second World War. However, the process was short-lived. The emergence of the Turkish nationalistic movement and the dissolution of the Sultanate resulted in the discontinuation of the trials and the majority of the accused were set free. Almost, the entire remaining Christian population – Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks – were expelled from areas they had inhabited for over thousands of years.
3 UN Genocide Convention 1948, the European Parliament and Official Recognitions
Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide” during the 1940s and was the father of the UN Convention of Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, was fully aware of the 1915 genocide and the failure of the international community to intervene. His revision of the definition was adopted in the UN Convention which reads as follows:
Article 2) In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Furthermore, it is established that the present-day UN Convention from 1948 is not a new legislation, but merely a ratification of existing international laws on “crimes against humanity” which were stated in the Sèvres Treaty, Article 230 (1920). Even more important is the fact that the UN Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, adopted on November 26, 1968, in power since November 11, 1970, which ratifies its retroactive an non-prescriptive nature. Of this very reason, both massacres in the Ottoman Empire and the Holocaust are cases of genocide in accordance to the UN Convention, in spite the fact that both occurred before the Convention was established.
During the history of UN two larger studies/reports have been conducted on the crime of genocide. The first was the so-called Ruhashyankiko Report, from 1978, and the second was the Whitaker Report, conducted by Benjamin Whitaker in 1985 (Economic and Social Council Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Thirty-eighth session, Item 4 of the provisional agenda, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/6).
The 1915 genocide is mentioned in several places in as an example of committed genocides during the 20th century. The report was voted on in the Subcommittee of the UN Committee for Human Rights with the voices 14 against 1 (4 abstentions) in August, 1985. On June 18, 1987, the European Parliament officially recognized the Armenian genocide. Since 1965, that is, the 50th anniversary of the genocide, several countries and organizations have officially recognized the 1915 genocide, among others Uruguay (1965), Cypress (1982), Russia (1995), Greece (1996), Lebanon (1997), Belgium (1998), France (1998), Italy (2000), The Vatican (2000), Switzerland (2003), Argentina (2003), Canada (2004), Slovakia (2004), Netherlands (2004), Poland (2005), Venezuela (2005), Germany (2005), Lithuania (2005), and Chile (2007).
4 The Research on the 1915 Genocide and Swedish Knowledge
Second to the Holocaust, the 1915 genocide is regarded as the most studied case in the modern time. Today a broad and interdisciplinary consensus exists among an overwhelming majority of genocide scholars who regard the massacres in the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide and which is referred by the scholars as the “genocide prototype” (while the Holocaust is called the “genocide paradigm”). The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), an independent world leading and interdisciplinary authority within the area, has in several occasions ratified a consensus in this matter, namely: June 13, 1997, June 13, 2005, October 5, 2007 and April 23, 2008. The resolution from July 13, 2007 reads as follows:
WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides;
WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;
BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution.
ON June 8, more than 60 world leading genocide experts signed an appeal directed to the members of the Parliament where they dismissed the claims about disunity among scholars regarding the 1915 genocide. The research must continue and both Turkey and the world must secure the possibilities for an open, independent and undisturbed atmosphere, among others by Turkey having to give full access to its archives as well as allowing similar discussions without scientist, authors, journalists and publishers risking prosecution for having commented on the reality of the genocide.
New research at Uppsala University witnesses also about a genuine Swedish knowledge of the 1915 genocide. Swedish Foreign Ministry and General Staff Head Quarters were fully informed about the ongoing annihilation through reports which the Swedish Ambassador Per Gustaf August Cosswa Anckarsvärd and the Swedish Military Attaché Einar af Wirsén (both stationed in Constantinople) sent to Stockholm. Among others one can read the following:
• Anckarsvärd, July 6, 1915: “Mr. Minister, The persecutions of the Armenians have reached hair-raising proportions and all points to the fact that the Young Turks want to seize the opportunity, since due to different reasons there are no effective external pressure to be feared, to once and for all put an end to the Armenian question. The means for this are quite simple and consist of the extermination of the Armenian nation.”
• Anckarsvärd, July 22, 1915: “It is not only the Armenians, but also the Turkish subjects of Greek nationality who at the present are subjected to severe persecutions… According to Mr.Tsamados [Greek chargé d’affaires] it [the deportations] can not be any other issue than an annihilation war against the Greek nation in Turkey …”
• Anckarsvärd, September 2, 1915: “The six so-called Armenian vilayets seem to be totally cleansed from, at least, its Armenian-Catholic Armenians… It is obvious that the Turks are taking the opportunity to, now during the war, exterminate the Armenian nation so that when the peace comes no Armenian question longer exists.”
• Wirsén, May 13, 1916: “ The health situation in Iraq is horrifying. Typhus fever claims numerous victims. The Armenian persecutions have to a large degree contributed to the spreading of the disease, since the expelled [Armenians] in hundred thousands have died from hunger and deprivation along the roads.”
• Anckarsvärd, January 5, 1917: “ The situation would have been different if Turkey had followed the advice of the Central Powers in letting them organise the question of provisioning etc…Even worse than this is, however, the extermination of Armenians, which, perhaps, could have been prevented if German advisers had in time received authority over the civilian administration as the German officers actually practise over army and navy.”
• Envoy Ahlgren, August 20, 1917: “The high prices continue to climb… There are several reasons:… and finally the strong decreasing of labour power, caused partly by the mobilisation but partly also by the extermination of the Armenian race”.
In his memoirs “Memories from Peace and War” (1942), Wirsén dedicated an entire chapter to the genocide. In “The Murder of a Nation”, Wirsén writes that:
“Officially, these [the deportations] had the goal to move the entire Armenian population to the steppe regions of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria, but in reality they aimed to exterminate the Armenians, whereby the pure Turkish element in Asia Minor would achieve a dominating position.… The annihilation of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor must upset all human feelings.
The way in which the Armenian issue was solved was hair-raising.”
In addition to these, there are numerous eyewitness accounts which missionaries and field workers such as Alma Johansson, Maria Anholm, Lars Erik Högberg, E. John Larson, Olga Moberg, Per Pehrsson and others published. Hjalmar Branting was the very first person, who long before Lemkin, used the term genocide (“folkmord”) when he, on March 26, 1917, called the persecutions against the Armenians as “an organized and systematic genocide, worse than what we ever have seen in Europe”.
A recognition of the 1915 genocide is not only important in order to redress the affected ethic groups and minorities which still live in Turkey, but also for the promotion of Turkey’s development. Turkey can not become a better democracy if the truth about its past is denied.
The Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered for having openly expressed himself regarding thegenocide and several others have been prosecuted by the same infamous Paragraph 301. The latest changes of the law by the Turkish Government are purely cosmetic and do not imply any changes what so ever. It is said that history should be left to historians and we completely support that. However, it is the responsibility of the politicians to act in accordance to historic facts and historic research. Furthermore, a Swedish recognition of the truth and a historic fact should not imply any hinder for either the reform work in Turkey or Turkey’s EU negotiations. With basis in what we have stated above, we consider that Sweden should recognize the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks. This should the Parliament present as its consideration to the Government.
Furthermore, we do consider that Sweden should act internationally, within the framework for EU and UN, for an international recognition of the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks. This should the Parliament present as its consideration to the Government.
As long as countries such as Sweden does not confront Turkey with the truth and the facts which are at hand, Turkey can not go further on its path to an more open society, a better democracy and fully open up its possibilities for a membership in EU. Thus, Sweden should act for Turkey to recognize the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks. This should the Parliament present as its consideration to the Government.
RUDY PONTIAN
1 Proposal for Parliament Decision
1. The Parliament announces to the government its decision in reference to what is stated in the motion regarding Sweden recognizing the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks.
2. The Parliament announces to the government its decision in reference to what is stated in the motion that Sweden should act within EU and UN for an international recognition of the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks.
3. The Parliament announces to the government its decision in reference to what is stated in the motion that Sweden should act for Turkey to recognize the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks.
2 Background
“Forum for living history is an authority which has the mission to – with basis in the Holocaust – work with issues which concern tolerance, democracy and human rights. By illuminating the darkest pieces of the human history we want to affect the future.”
So reads the description of an agency which works on mission by order of the Swedish Government and educates, among others, about the 1915 genocide. The lesson of history is one of the cornerstones of the present-day democracies where we have learned of our mistakes and by preventing repetition of earlier errors we strive for a better future. However, a prevention of future missteps, especially if these are known from the history, can not be implemented if one does not openly recognizes committed errors. Thus, history revisionism is a dangerous tool for facilitating repetition of the dark pages of the history.
The 1915 genocide foremost engulfed Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks, but later came to also affect other minorities. It was the dream of a large Turanic Empire, Great Turan, which caused the Turkish leaders wanting to ethnically homogenize the remains of the decaying Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 19th century. This was achieved under the cover of the ongoing world war, when the Armenian, Assyrian/Syrian/Chaldean and Pontic Greek population of the empire were, almost entirely, annihilated. Researchers estimate that about 1,500,000 Armenians, between 250,000 and 500,000 Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and about 350,000 Pontic Greeks have been killed or disappeared.
During the short period following the Turkish defeat in 1918 until the time when the Turkish nationalistic movement, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, the genocide was discussed openly. Political and military leaders stood on trial, accused for “war crimes” and “committed crimes against humanity”. Several of them were found guilty and sentenced to the death or prison. During these trials horrible details about the persecution of the minorities in the Ottoman Empire were reveled. Thus, Turkey went through the same phase as the one Germany experienced after the Second World War. However, the process was short-lived. The emergence of the Turkish nationalistic movement and the dissolution of the Sultanate resulted in the discontinuation of the trials and the majority of the accused were set free. Almost, the entire remaining Christian population – Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks – were expelled from areas they had inhabited for over thousands of years.
3 UN Genocide Convention 1948, the European Parliament and Official Recognitions
Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide” during the 1940s and was the father of the UN Convention of Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, was fully aware of the 1915 genocide and the failure of the international community to intervene. His revision of the definition was adopted in the UN Convention which reads as follows:
Article 2) In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Furthermore, it is established that the present-day UN Convention from 1948 is not a new legislation, but merely a ratification of existing international laws on “crimes against humanity” which were stated in the Sèvres Treaty, Article 230 (1920). Even more important is the fact that the UN Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, adopted on November 26, 1968, in power since November 11, 1970, which ratifies its retroactive an non-prescriptive nature. Of this very reason, both massacres in the Ottoman Empire and the Holocaust are cases of genocide in accordance to the UN Convention, in spite the fact that both occurred before the Convention was established.
During the history of UN two larger studies/reports have been conducted on the crime of genocide. The first was the so-called Ruhashyankiko Report, from 1978, and the second was the Whitaker Report, conducted by Benjamin Whitaker in 1985 (Economic and Social Council Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Thirty-eighth session, Item 4 of the provisional agenda, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/6).
The 1915 genocide is mentioned in several places in as an example of committed genocides during the 20th century. The report was voted on in the Subcommittee of the UN Committee for Human Rights with the voices 14 against 1 (4 abstentions) in August, 1985. On June 18, 1987, the European Parliament officially recognized the Armenian genocide. Since 1965, that is, the 50th anniversary of the genocide, several countries and organizations have officially recognized the 1915 genocide, among others Uruguay (1965), Cypress (1982), Russia (1995), Greece (1996), Lebanon (1997), Belgium (1998), France (1998), Italy (2000), The Vatican (2000), Switzerland (2003), Argentina (2003), Canada (2004), Slovakia (2004), Netherlands (2004), Poland (2005), Venezuela (2005), Germany (2005), Lithuania (2005), and Chile (2007).
4 The Research on the 1915 Genocide and Swedish Knowledge
Second to the Holocaust, the 1915 genocide is regarded as the most studied case in the modern time. Today a broad and interdisciplinary consensus exists among an overwhelming majority of genocide scholars who regard the massacres in the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide and which is referred by the scholars as the “genocide prototype” (while the Holocaust is called the “genocide paradigm”). The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), an independent world leading and interdisciplinary authority within the area, has in several occasions ratified a consensus in this matter, namely: June 13, 1997, June 13, 2005, October 5, 2007 and April 23, 2008. The resolution from July 13, 2007 reads as follows:
WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides;
WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;
BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution.
ON June 8, more than 60 world leading genocide experts signed an appeal directed to the members of the Parliament where they dismissed the claims about disunity among scholars regarding the 1915 genocide. The research must continue and both Turkey and the world must secure the possibilities for an open, independent and undisturbed atmosphere, among others by Turkey having to give full access to its archives as well as allowing similar discussions without scientist, authors, journalists and publishers risking prosecution for having commented on the reality of the genocide.
New research at Uppsala University witnesses also about a genuine Swedish knowledge of the 1915 genocide. Swedish Foreign Ministry and General Staff Head Quarters were fully informed about the ongoing annihilation through reports which the Swedish Ambassador Per Gustaf August Cosswa Anckarsvärd and the Swedish Military Attaché Einar af Wirsén (both stationed in Constantinople) sent to Stockholm. Among others one can read the following:
• Anckarsvärd, July 6, 1915: “Mr. Minister, The persecutions of the Armenians have reached hair-raising proportions and all points to the fact that the Young Turks want to seize the opportunity, since due to different reasons there are no effective external pressure to be feared, to once and for all put an end to the Armenian question. The means for this are quite simple and consist of the extermination of the Armenian nation.”
• Anckarsvärd, July 22, 1915: “It is not only the Armenians, but also the Turkish subjects of Greek nationality who at the present are subjected to severe persecutions… According to Mr.Tsamados [Greek chargé d’affaires] it [the deportations] can not be any other issue than an annihilation war against the Greek nation in Turkey …”
• Anckarsvärd, September 2, 1915: “The six so-called Armenian vilayets seem to be totally cleansed from, at least, its Armenian-Catholic Armenians… It is obvious that the Turks are taking the opportunity to, now during the war, exterminate the Armenian nation so that when the peace comes no Armenian question longer exists.”
• Wirsén, May 13, 1916: “ The health situation in Iraq is horrifying. Typhus fever claims numerous victims. The Armenian persecutions have to a large degree contributed to the spreading of the disease, since the expelled [Armenians] in hundred thousands have died from hunger and deprivation along the roads.”
• Anckarsvärd, January 5, 1917: “ The situation would have been different if Turkey had followed the advice of the Central Powers in letting them organise the question of provisioning etc…Even worse than this is, however, the extermination of Armenians, which, perhaps, could have been prevented if German advisers had in time received authority over the civilian administration as the German officers actually practise over army and navy.”
• Envoy Ahlgren, August 20, 1917: “The high prices continue to climb… There are several reasons:… and finally the strong decreasing of labour power, caused partly by the mobilisation but partly also by the extermination of the Armenian race”.
In his memoirs “Memories from Peace and War” (1942), Wirsén dedicated an entire chapter to the genocide. In “The Murder of a Nation”, Wirsén writes that:
“Officially, these [the deportations] had the goal to move the entire Armenian population to the steppe regions of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria, but in reality they aimed to exterminate the Armenians, whereby the pure Turkish element in Asia Minor would achieve a dominating position.… The annihilation of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor must upset all human feelings.
The way in which the Armenian issue was solved was hair-raising.”
In addition to these, there are numerous eyewitness accounts which missionaries and field workers such as Alma Johansson, Maria Anholm, Lars Erik Högberg, E. John Larson, Olga Moberg, Per Pehrsson and others published. Hjalmar Branting was the very first person, who long before Lemkin, used the term genocide (“folkmord”) when he, on March 26, 1917, called the persecutions against the Armenians as “an organized and systematic genocide, worse than what we ever have seen in Europe”.
A recognition of the 1915 genocide is not only important in order to redress the affected ethic groups and minorities which still live in Turkey, but also for the promotion of Turkey’s development. Turkey can not become a better democracy if the truth about its past is denied.
The Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered for having openly expressed himself regarding thegenocide and several others have been prosecuted by the same infamous Paragraph 301. The latest changes of the law by the Turkish Government are purely cosmetic and do not imply any changes what so ever. It is said that history should be left to historians and we completely support that. However, it is the responsibility of the politicians to act in accordance to historic facts and historic research. Furthermore, a Swedish recognition of the truth and a historic fact should not imply any hinder for either the reform work in Turkey or Turkey’s EU negotiations. With basis in what we have stated above, we consider that Sweden should recognize the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks. This should the Parliament present as its consideration to the Government.
Furthermore, we do consider that Sweden should act internationally, within the framework for EU and UN, for an international recognition of the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks. This should the Parliament present as its consideration to the Government.
As long as countries such as Sweden does not confront Turkey with the truth and the facts which are at hand, Turkey can not go further on its path to an more open society, a better democracy and fully open up its possibilities for a membership in EU. Thus, Sweden should act for Turkey to recognize the 1915 genocide against Armenians, Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks. This should the Parliament present as its consideration to the Government.
RUDY PONTIAN
PONTUS
THE 91st PONTIAN GREEK GENOCIDE COMMEMORATION
by RUDY PONTIAN
As President of Panthracian Union he was responsible for organizing the first ever Hellenic Genocide Commemoration outside the United Nations on April 6, 2009. He is currently the Panthracian Representative to the Federation of Hellenic
THE 91st PONTIAN GREEK GENOCIDE COMMEMORATION
Pontian Greek Genocide To Be Commemorated In New York May 19 The commemoration event will include speeches by Greek and Greek...
Hellenic Genocide Commemoration Outside The UN On April 6, 2009 The Pan-Thracian Union of America “ORPHEUS”...
The Greek Genocide In Thrace Good luck and well done to the Pan Thracian Union...
Pontian Genocide Commemorated In New York The international day of remembrance for the Pontian Genocide, was...
by RUDY PONTIAN
As President of Panthracian Union he was responsible for organizing the first ever Hellenic Genocide Commemoration outside the United Nations on April 6, 2009. He is currently the Panthracian Representative to the Federation of Hellenic
THE 91st PONTIAN GREEK GENOCIDE COMMEMORATION
Pontian Greek Genocide To Be Commemorated In New York May 19 The commemoration event will include speeches by Greek and Greek...
Hellenic Genocide Commemoration Outside The UN On April 6, 2009 The Pan-Thracian Union of America “ORPHEUS”...
The Greek Genocide In Thrace Good luck and well done to the Pan Thracian Union...
Pontian Genocide Commemorated In New York The international day of remembrance for the Pontian Genocide, was...
रूडी PONTIAN
May 19, the international day of remembrance for the Pontian Greek Genocide will be commemorated in New York City with a public event and flag raising of the Pontian Greek flag and the flag of Greece in Manhattan’s Bowling Green Park (corner of State Street and Broadway), New York City. The commemoration event is organized by the Pan Pontian Federation of USA and Canada and the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York. The commemoration event will include speeches by Greek and Greek American dignitaries and leaders, American elected public officials, writers, intellectuals, anti-genocide activists and representatives of the Armenian American and Assyrian American communities.
This year’s Pontian Greek Genocide commemoration will also honor the Swedish Ambassador for the recent recognition by the Swedish Parliament of Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Pontian Greeks.
The Pontian Greek Genocide has been recognized by Greece, Cyprus and recently Sweden. In the United States numerous states and cities, including New York, have recognized the Pontian Greek Genocide by resolutions or proclamations.
This year’s Pontian Greek Genocide commemoration will also honor the Swedish Ambassador for the recent recognition by the Swedish Parliament of Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Pontian Greeks.
The Pontian Greek Genocide has been recognized by Greece, Cyprus and recently Sweden. In the United States numerous states and cities, including New York, have recognized the Pontian Greek Genocide by resolutions or proclamations.
पोंतिंस genocide by Turks
This year’s Pontian Greek Genocide commemoration will also honor the Swedish Ambassador for the recent recognition by the Swedish Parliament of Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Pontian Greeks.
The Pontian Greek Genocide has been recognized by Greece, Cyprus and recently Sweden. In the United States numerous states and cities, including New York, have recognized the Pontian Greek Genocide by resolutions or proclamations. The leading scholarly body of Genocide Scholars the IAGS (International Association of Genocide Scholars) has also recognized the Pontian Greek Genocide. Numerous events are held around the world commemorating May 19th, the international day of remembrance for the Pontian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish government, the Young Turks, and Kemalist Turkey directly under the rule of Mustafa Kemal. Turkey’s genocidal campaign of systematic persecutions ,massacres, deportations, rapes and burnings of villages resulting in the murder of the ancient Hellenic civilization of Pontus on the southeast coast of the Black sea—was initiated by the Ottoman Turkish government during World War I and continued into the nationalist era of Kemalist Turkey, and was carried out under the command of various Turkish government leaders --such as Talaat Pasha who today has a major thoroughfare named in his honor in Angora, Mustafa Kemal today honored as ‘father of the Turks’ ,and Topal Osman (leader of irregulars called Chetes whose specific job was the rape and massacre of women, children and the elderly) today honored by Turkey with statues in his likeness in our Pontus homeland. Turkey today denies responsibility for this crime.
In Canada the Pan Pontian Federation USA and CANADA will join a diverse group of organizations in the month of May in the anti-Genocide event “United We Rock”, to learn more visit the site: www.unitedwerockconcert.com.
Please download PDF copy of the Pan Pontian Federation USA and CANADA invitation for the New York event in the following link:
Please place the invitation in visible areas, and pass it on to family and friends.
On Wednesday May 19th at 7:30 pm at Stathakion Center, 22-51 29 Street, Astoria, NY 11105 there will be a Speech by Mrs Fanoulla Argyrou, Greek-Cypriot researcher, journalist and author coming from London entitled " From the Greek-Pontian genocide to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus" in Greek.
Mrs. F. Argyrou is specialised in the study of the British official released Foreign Office documents on Cyprus with an experience of well over 20 years on the matter. Has written 8 books, numerous studies, speeches in conferences, hundreds of articles in the Greek Cypriot press in Cyprus and is an associate writer with London based newspapers “Ta Nea”, “Eleftheria” and “Simerini” in Cyprus as well as others and Radio Proto in Cyprus.
RUDY PONTIAN
The Pontian Greek Genocide has been recognized by Greece, Cyprus and recently Sweden. In the United States numerous states and cities, including New York, have recognized the Pontian Greek Genocide by resolutions or proclamations. The leading scholarly body of Genocide Scholars the IAGS (International Association of Genocide Scholars) has also recognized the Pontian Greek Genocide. Numerous events are held around the world commemorating May 19th, the international day of remembrance for the Pontian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish government, the Young Turks, and Kemalist Turkey directly under the rule of Mustafa Kemal. Turkey’s genocidal campaign of systematic persecutions ,massacres, deportations, rapes and burnings of villages resulting in the murder of the ancient Hellenic civilization of Pontus on the southeast coast of the Black sea—was initiated by the Ottoman Turkish government during World War I and continued into the nationalist era of Kemalist Turkey, and was carried out under the command of various Turkish government leaders --such as Talaat Pasha who today has a major thoroughfare named in his honor in Angora, Mustafa Kemal today honored as ‘father of the Turks’ ,and Topal Osman (leader of irregulars called Chetes whose specific job was the rape and massacre of women, children and the elderly) today honored by Turkey with statues in his likeness in our Pontus homeland. Turkey today denies responsibility for this crime.
In Canada the Pan Pontian Federation USA and CANADA will join a diverse group of organizations in the month of May in the anti-Genocide event “United We Rock”, to learn more visit the site: www.unitedwerockconcert.com.
Please download PDF copy of the Pan Pontian Federation USA and CANADA invitation for the New York event in the following link:
Please place the invitation in visible areas, and pass it on to family and friends.
On Wednesday May 19th at 7:30 pm at Stathakion Center, 22-51 29 Street, Astoria, NY 11105 there will be a Speech by Mrs Fanoulla Argyrou, Greek-Cypriot researcher, journalist and author coming from London entitled " From the Greek-Pontian genocide to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus" in Greek.
Mrs. F. Argyrou is specialised in the study of the British official released Foreign Office documents on Cyprus with an experience of well over 20 years on the matter. Has written 8 books, numerous studies, speeches in conferences, hundreds of articles in the Greek Cypriot press in Cyprus and is an associate writer with London based newspapers “Ta Nea”, “Eleftheria” and “Simerini” in Cyprus as well as others and Radio Proto in Cyprus.
RUDY PONTIAN
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
लाज्लारिन तरीही, यजां MAYIOGLU
Lazlar(Tçani) kavmi ilkel çağlarda Koelhi kavmiyle bağlantısı olan Kafkasyalı bir kavimdir . Eski Koelhi Krallığında Laz’lar ve Megreller beraber yaşıyordu .Irk açısından Gürcülere yakındır .Kültürel açıdan ise Bizans ,Türk Osmanlı ve Gürcü kültürünü kendi bünyesinde sentezlemiştir .Laz kralları çağdaşlarının aksine monarşik değildiler ,krallık babadan oğula geçmezdi ,seçimle işbaşına gelinirdi . Krallık Roma imparatorluğdan yarı özerk bir yapıda idi ,Bizans’a asker yada vergiVermezdi . Bizans’a karşı tek görevi vardı .Sınır bekçiliği yaparak kuzeyden gelebilecek kavimleri engellemek .Lazika (laz krallığının adı) asırlarca Roma ve Perslilerin çatışma noktası oldu . Persliler kendi dinleri olan Mazdeizmi yaymaya çalışıken ,Romalılarda Hristiyanlığı yaymaya çalıştılar sonuçtaRomalılar üstün geldi .Persliler Ermenistan ve İberya’yı işgal edip Lazika’yı tamamen kuşatmışlardı .Roma ve Laz orduları Perslileri bozguna uğrattılar(M.S. 550) . Romalilar Laz halkının günlük ihtiyacı olan her türlü maddeyi ellerinden yok bahasına alıyor ,halkın istemediği bir takım eşyaları onlara zorla bir kaç kat fiyata satıyordu .Lazlar Perslerle anlaşma yoluna gittiler ve Romalılara karşı ayaklandılar .Persleri davet ettiklerinede pişman oldular , Putperest İranlılar kendi dinlerini zorla yaymak istediler ,Lazika’yı da kendi topraklarına katmak istiyordu .Daha önemlisi Lazika’daki tuz ve tahıl üretimi yeterli olmadığı için Romadan getiriliyordu , karşılığında deri , esir ve bazı takas eşyaları verilirdi .Bu olanaklar yitirilince halk sıkıntıya düştü .İranlılar laz halkını İran’a sürmeyi ve Laz topraklarınıİranlı göçmenlerle doldurmayı istiyorlardı .Bunun üzerine Lazlar tekrar Caesar Justinyen’den yardım istediler.Lazika Roma (Bizans) ve Pers gibi iki düşman arasında 7.yyla kadar çekişme sahası oldu .Bu çekişme Romalıların zaferi ile son buldu .Tüm Lazistan hristiyan oldu . Tüm Lazlar Elenceyi iyi bilip konuşuyorlardı .Hem ticaret , hem dini açıdan hayatında bu dil önemli idi .Tüm Lazlar Elen bayramlarına katılır ve sempati gösterirlerdi ,Elen kültürüne büyük ölçüde adapte olmuş Kafkas kültüründen ve Gürcü uzak akrabalarından kopmaya başlamışlardı Lazistan Osmanlı yönetiminde Gürcistan Moğol istilasına maruz kalınca zayıflayınca Trabzon krallığı üzerinde Bizans etkinliği tekrar başladı .Bu dönemde Osmanlı Türkleri Bizans kapılarına dayanmıştı .1341 yılında Türkler Trabzon krallığını yağmaladılar .1461 yılında Sultan 2.Mehmet(Fatih) o zamanın en güçlü ordusuyla Trabzon kıyılarına dayandı .Trabzon kralı David’in karşı koyacak gücü yoktu .Ülkesini savaşmadanOsmalı’ya teslim etti .Sultan Mehmet ,David ve 8 oğlunu boğdurup ortadan kaldırdı .Lazlar Bizans yönetiminde iken verdikleri mücadele sadece dil ve kültürlerini korumak noktasında iken Osmanlı yönetiminde yapmak zorunda kalacakları mücadele daha zorlu olacaktı . Türkler Anadoludan Hristiyanlığı koparıp kazımak istiyordu .Lazlar arasında İslamı yaymaya başladılarÖzellikle Sultan Selim döneminde (1512-1522) telkin ve ikna yerine kaba güç kullanılarak bu iş başarıldı .Selim askerleriyle birlikte Trabzondan hareket ederek Arhavi , Viçe ,Hopa ,Gonio ,Batum ,Sarp ,Çhala , Beğleven , Makriali kent ve köylerini kontrol altına aldı .Savaş aralıksız 3 yıl sürdü . Lazlar kendilerinden çok üstün kuvvetlere büyük azimle direndiler ama erzakları bitti ve askerlerinin dörtte üçü ölünce barış istediler .Osmanli paşası Lazları İslam’a davet etti .Lazların temsilcisi Petros‘Bizler Hristiyanız .Bizi böyle Kabul ediniz ,asla müslüman olmayız’ dedi .Osmanlılar buna rağmen anlaşma yaptılar .Üç yıl kadar sonar ise asimilasyon başladı .Laz papazlar hapse atıldı .Türkçe medreseler açıldı ,müslüman din adamları bölgeye getirildi .Bu dönemde Lazistanda dil sınırı Rize idi .Rize’nin Trabzona yakın kısmındaki halk Sinop’a kadar Elence (Yunanca ) konuşuyor , Gürcistan’a yakın olan kısımdan Batum’a kada bölgede yaşayan halk ise Lazca konuşuyordu . İslamı Kabul etmeyen köylüler ağır vergilerle cezalandırılmaktadır .Bazı fanatik Hristiyan aileler yeni doğmuş çocuklarını bile müslüman olmasın diye öldürmektedir .Lazlar işte bu dönemde denasyolinizasyona uğradılar müslüman olanlar Türkler arasında ,Hristiyan olanlar ise Rumlar arasında eridi .Küçük Laz ülkesi Osmanlı kültürü içinde eridi gitti . Osmanlının gerileme döneminde en büyük rakibi ve düşmanı Rusya idi .1809 yılında Rus ordusu Poti kalesini kuşatıp Osmanlıdan aldı .Derken 1854-1855 Kırım savaşı çıkar .Karl Marks’ın stratejik yorumu şudur :‘Bu savaşta Türkler açısından hayati öneme haiz nokta Erzurum ,Ruslar içinse Tiflisdir .Bu iki noktayıda elde tutabilmek için once Batum’a sahip olmak gerekir .Batum bölgedeki ticari hayat içinhayatidir .İşte bu önemi takdir eden Rus Çarları once Batum’u ele geçirmeyi düşünmüştür .’Türkler için , Trabzon’un gelişmesi ve beslenmesi için Batum hayati bir coğrafi noktadadır . Anadoluya sahil yoluyla açılan kapının kildi ,tüm Türkiye pozisyonuna hakim noktada ve Erzurum’u sırtından vurabilecek bir üstü . Tabiki Batum’u elinde tutabilmek için üstün bir donanma gerekli idi .Ruslar bu işi başardılar ve Trabzon’un düşüşü başladı ve günümüze kadar sürdü . Trabzon bin yıldan fazla Anadolunun kültür ,ekonomi ,sanat ,gelişmişlik açısından İstanbuldan sonraki ikinci şehriIken günümüzde yoksul üçüncü dünya’ya ait kasaba irisi bir vilayettir . Osmanbey’in izlenimlerine gore(1864) Trabzon halkı karışık etnik guruplardan oluşmuştur .Nüfusunun müslüman kesimini Lazlar ve Rum dönmeleri oluşturur .Burada yaşayan değişik milletlerden gelen nüfus din ,ortak lisan ve ortak çıkar hesaplarıyla kaynaşmış bütünleşmiş görünmektedir .Lazlar çalışkanlıklarıla tanınırlar ,çoğunluğu toprakla uğraşır .Yetiştirdikleri ürünler mısır ,buğday , arpa ,fındık ve tütündür .Denizcilik ve ticarette tüm uluslara rakiptirler .Osmanlı deniz askerlerinin dörtte üçü lazdır .Lazlar silahsız dolaşmazlar .’ Lazca’nın üç şivesi vardır .Hopa ,Arhavi ve Atina ağızlarıdır . Hopa ağzı Megrelcenin tıpatıp benzeridir .Abuderesi ağzı olan Arhavi ağzı ise diğer iki ağzın ortak özelliklerini taşımaktadır . Atina ağzı ise ağır bir Yunancanın ve Türkçenin etkisiyle aslından çok uzaklaşmıştır . Osmanlı döneminde Lazistan 5 idari bölgeye ayrılmıştır . 1-Hana 2-Gonio 3-Arhavi 4-Hemşin 5- Atina Bu bölgelerin hepsi Trabzon eyaletine bağlıdır . Gürcü tarihçisi D.Bakrazade Rize-Trabzon sınırındaki Kemer bucağının Rum ülkesi ile Laz ülkesini ayıran sınır olduğunu yazmaktadır .‘Denizcilik sanatı Lazların yurtlarından uzaklaşmalarına zemin hazırlıyordu .Ticaret işide öyle .Lazların fiziki güzelliği ve ahlaklı insanlar olmaları ,Osmanlıların Lazlarla akrabalık kurma hevesleri ,hatta Laz çocuklarını parta ile satın almaya kadar işi ileri götürmeleri Lazların asimilasyonunu hızlandırmıştır .Lazistan bir bal ülkesidir .Lazlar balmumunda bir numaradır .Hatta balmumundan rakı bile yapmışla r dır .Laz bamumu Yunanistan ,Rusya ve Gürcistan’a satılırdı .Lazlar şarapçılıktada iyidiler tüm Bizans’a beyaz ve kırmızı şaraplar satılırdı .İslam Lazistan’a yerleşince Padişah fermanı ile tüm üzü Günümüzde durum Hemşinlilerin genellikle müslümanlaştırılmış Ermeniler olduğu bilinmektedir.Atina(Pazar)ilinde Lazca konuşulan köyler şunlardır :(bu bölgedeki lazca Yunanca ve Türkçeden etkilenmiş Atina ağzıdır )Kukulati,Dudathevi ,Meliati ,Sürmene ,Larosi ,Kalencuki ,Kemeri ,Cabati , Tordotavi ,Zeleki ,Veneki ,Hunari ,Aranami ,Cicivati ,Kititi ,Saçkuni ,Nohalopsu ,Suleti , Noğadiha ,Hilisa ,Huzika , Talvati ,Apso ,Zağnati ,Başköy ,Bulepi ,Hotri ,İlastas ,Papati , Sapu ,Papilatİ ,Cigetura ,Dadevati ,Mamakivati ,Tsukita ,Kostanevi ,Hako ,Eski Trapezoni , Kuençareri ,Bakasi ,Pilangivati ,Tolivani ,Mekaliskiriti ,Apimho ,Komilo ,Arteşeni ,Tolivani , Ti-msivati ,Guanti ,Nana ,Cibistas ,Okurdule ,Tsiati ,Salinkli ,Yenivati ,Şanguli ,Dzğemi ,Gere , Oce ,Ortaköy ,Mutapi ,Duthe .Viçe ilçesinin tüm köylerinde ,Abuskari vadisindeki köylerde lazca konuşulmaktadır . Hopa vadisinde Laz köyleri : Nadirati ,Kilise ,Limititi ,Duliati ,Mapatskari (bunlar kalıntı halindeler)Zurpici ,Tsakaristi , Peroniti ,Kisa ,Sundura ,Kuledibi ,Buçe ,Ortahopa ,Bucak ,Mhigi ,Azlağa Orjinaline en yakın ağız Arhavi bölgesinde konuşulmaktadır .Bu bölgeler dışında Karadenizde Lazca konuşan yoktur ama genel olarak Sinoptan Batum’a kadar olan bölgedeki insanlara Laz denilmektedir . Buralarda yaşayanlar bir kısmı Laz soylu ,çoğu ise Elen Soyundan gelen Türkleşmiş müslümanlardır .(Çepni adı verilen Oğuz boyundan yazar bahsetmemiştir .Trabzon ve çevresine Osmanlı tarafından yerleştirilen bu Türk boyu bölgenin Türkleştirilmesinde önemli rol üstlenmiştir .) Atina(Pazar) lazları genelde fırıncılıkla uğraşırlar .Laz erkekleri para kazanmak için genelde gurbete giderler .Viçe Lazları tütüncülüğe önem verir .Sahil boyu bütün kentlerde tütün ticareti ile nam salmışlardır .
LAZLAR
MS 3 - 4. yüzyıllar arasında kurulan ve MS 561 yılında yıkılan Lazi Krallığı döneminde, genel olarak Can/Çan/Zan olarak anılan birbiriyle akraba olan veya olmayan pek çok Kolh kabilesi, Giresun civarından, Kafkasya’nın iç bölgelerine değin yaşa-dıkları bölgede Laz/Lazi adını benimsemiş, bu isim Roma, Trabzon ve Osmanlı İmparatorlukları döneminde de geleneksel olarak kullanılmaya devam etmiştir.Bugün Rize’nin doğusunda yaşayıp adı Lazca (Lazuri nena) olan, Megrelce’yle akra-ba bir Kafkas dilini konuşan halktan farklı olarak, ana dili Türkçe veya Rumca olup, Laz adını benimseyen batıdakiler, asimilasyona uğramış aynı kabile mensupları değildirler. Kafkasya’nın Arap ordularının işgaline uğradığı dönemde bazı Kolh kabileri güneye bugün yaşadıkları bölgeye göç etmek zorunda kalmışlardır ve bugün Lazca konuşmaktadırlar. Batıdakiler ise ilk çağlardan beri yerlisi oldukları topraklarda yaşayan ve Anabasis’te (MÖ 401) Mossionik, Makron, Kolh ardından bir dönem Heniokhi olarak adlandırılıp, Lazi Krallığı döneminde diğer Kolh klanlarıyla birlikte aynı adı benimseyen halklardır. Çeşitli dönemlerde Yunanlı, Haldiyalı ve Türk klanlarıyla karışmalarına rağmen kısmen varlıklarını korumuş olmalıdırlar.
Bugun Lazlar yoğun olarak Pazar,Hopa,Ardeşen,Fındıklı,Arhavi,Artvin,Sakarya, İzmit,Bursa ve İstanbul'dayaşarlar.Bu yerlerin haricindeki yerleşkelerde de bir miktar Laz yaşamaktadır.Lazlar asıl yerleri ise Pazar ile Hopa arasıdır.Zaten Lazların anavatanlarıda buradadır.Eski çağlarda Lazistan Krallığı burada kurulmuştur.Cumhuriyet'in ilk dönemleri ve Osmanlı devrinde de Doğ Karadeniz Lazistan olarak geçer.Bugün Turkiye de 2a 800.000 civarında Laz bulunmakta. Ancak asimilasyon nedeinyle büyük bir çoğunluğu dilini,kültürünü kaybetmiştir.Laz'ım demekten korkar olmuştur.Lazlar çok şen,iyi insanlardır.Yüzleri gibi kalpleride güzeldir.Lazlar Doğu Kardeniz'in asıl sakinleridir.
Bugun Lazlar yoğun olarak Pazar,Hopa,Ardeşen,Fındıklı,Arhavi,Artvin,Sakarya, İzmit,Bursa ve İstanbul'dayaşarlar.Bu yerlerin haricindeki yerleşkelerde de bir miktar Laz yaşamaktadır.Lazlar asıl yerleri ise Pazar ile Hopa arasıdır.Zaten Lazların anavatanlarıda buradadır.Eski çağlarda Lazistan Krallığı burada kurulmuştur.Cumhuriyet'in ilk dönemleri ve Osmanlı devrinde de Doğ Karadeniz Lazistan olarak geçer.Bugün Turkiye de 2a 800.000 civarında Laz bulunmakta. Ancak asimilasyon nedeinyle büyük bir çoğunluğu dilini,kültürünü kaybetmiştir.Laz'ım demekten korkar olmuştur.Lazlar çok şen,iyi insanlardır.Yüzleri gibi kalpleride güzeldir.Lazlar Doğu Kardeniz'in asıl sakinleridir.
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