BRIEFING ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

 The relevant UN convention (09/12/1948) defines genocide

as: “any act committed with intent to destroy, in whole
or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group”.
 The term “genocide” was coined in 1943 by Polish-Jewish
lawyer Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), in reference to the
ongoing Jewish Holocaust, having the massacres of the
Armenians in mind.
 Genocides have been committed both in antiquity and in
modern times (e.g. against the native peoples of America,
the Pontian Genocide, the Assyrian Genocide, the Jewish
Holocaust, the Genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, etc.).

Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն, Turkish: Ermeni Soykırımı)

 It was waged in four phases: Hamidian
Massacres (1894-1896), Adana Massacre (1909),
Young Turks’ Massacres (1915-1918) and Kemal
Ataturk Massacres (1920-1923).
 Savage massacres, unspeakable atrocities,
barbarities and brutalities, holocausts,
drownings, deportations, death marches in the
Der Zor desert (present-day Syria) and various
other tortures.
 Over 1.500.000 Armenians were exterminated,
more than 880.000 became refugees (80.000
within Turkey) and at least 95.000 were Islamised.
 450 monasteries, 1.950 schools, 2.430 churches,
countless libraries, monuments, works of art,
relics and artefacts were seized, and the names
of 3.600 towns and villages were Turkified.
 Commemoration Day: 24 April 1915.
 It is recognised by 33 countries (Cyprus: second
in the world, first in Europe on 24/04/1975).
 Its result is the Armenian Diaspora; nearly 9.000 refugees fled to Cyprus, of whom 1.300 remained.
 Turkey stubbornly denies it and poses an obstacle to its global recognition, taking advantage of its geostrategic
location. Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code makes any reference to it a penal act.
 The wealthy Armenian minority was viewed as an obstacle to the Sultan’s
plans to impose a pan-Islamic state ideology, to strengthen the territorial
integrity of the collapsing Ottoman Empire (the Sick Man of Europe).
 Religious nationalism: Christian Armenians were considered a problem for
the Muslim Turks, because they perceived them as the one and the same
with the Europeans and Russians, rivals of the Ottoman Empire.
 Civic nationalism: The Armenians of Cilicia and Anatolia asserted equal rights
and autonomy, thus they were considered a threat to the Islamic character of
the Ottoman Empire and the Panturanic ideology of the Young Turks.
 The Ottoman authorities were spreading false propaganda against
Armenians already since 1914: “The Armenians are collaborating with
the enemy” (the Russians).
 Tehcir and Emval-ı-Metruke Laws (1915): deportation of the Armenians and
confiscation of their movable/immovable property (houses, lands, animals).
 Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister: “clearing Turkish soil of a
Christian race”, “an administrative holocaust”.
 Count Paul Graf Wolff Metternich, Ambassador of Germany and Prussia in Constantinople: “Turkification means
licence to expel, to kill or destroy everything that is not Turkish”.
 Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador of the U.S.A. to the Ottoman Empire: “I am confident that the whole history of
the human race contains no such horrible episode as this”.
 Theodore Roosevelt, American President: “The Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the War, and
the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it…”.
 Talaât Pasha, Ottoman Minister of Interior: “I have accomplished more towards solving the Armenian problem
in three months than what Abdul Hamid II accomplished in thirty years”.
 Caliph Abdul Medjid ΙΙ: “These awful massacres are the greatest stain that has ever disgraced our nation and race”.
 Adolph Hitler exploited the impunity of the Genocide to carry out the Jewish Holocaust: “Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”.