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[Jasper]

WARNING: DISTRESSING PHOTOS BELOW!


Today marks the 99th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman Empire's (now Turkey) government's systematic extermination of its minority Armenian population from the Armenian's historical homeland in the territory that is present day Turkey.

It took place during World War I and was comprised of the killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and disabled on death marches to the Syrian Desert.

The total number of Armenians killed as a result of the Armenian Genocide has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million.

It is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, as scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust. The word "genocide" was created by Raphael Lemkin in order to describe what had happened to the Armenians.

The starting date of the genocide is held to be April 24, 1915, the day when Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles towards extermination camps, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace.

Examples of forms of torture and murder included mass burnings, mass drownings, mass death marches, and use of poison/drug overdoses for in particular children including morphine overdose, toxic gas, and typhoid inoculation.

Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty countries including France, Canada, Russia & Switzerland have officially recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians accept that it was indeed a genocide.

You will find below photos of the events of the Armenian Genocide. You may find some photos DISTURBING, but what I have posted below is in fact extremely tame compared to other photos which show Armenians during the genocide being crucified to crosses, beheaded, and babies being dismembered using contraptions to cut them in half.

Note that torture against the Armenians by the Turks during the genocide was prevalent & encouraged by the Ottoman government.

In a New York Times communiqué filed on November 12, 1916, the German Consul at Mosul “had in many places seen such quantities of chopped-off hands of little children that the streets might have been paved with them.” Armenians “had their eyebrows plucked out, their breasts cut off, their nails torn off; their torturers hew off their feet or else hammer nails into them just as they do in shoeing horses.” Citing a witness, Samuel Bartlett of Toronto, the New York Times continued, “the Turks also took all the babies in the town and threw them into the river until it overflowed its banks. They let out the priests, put red-hot iron shoes on their feet, tied them to wagons and forced them to walk long distances.” Summarizing the execution plan of the genocide, Colonel Hawker (New York Times, June 7, 1919) states: “The Turkish plan was to take all the able-bodied men from the community and tie them up. Then they would torture them by cutting their flesh and burning their wounds. Finally, they would cut off their heads in the presence of the wives and children of the victims. The old men, women and children were [then] herded together and driven from place to place.” Ambassador Morgenthau reflects on the perpetrator psychology behind these atrocities that “the basic fact underlying the Turkish mentality is its utter contempt for all other races … [There is] a total disregard for human life and an intense delight in inflicting physical suffering.” Morgenthau concludes soberly that a “fairly insane pride is the element that largely explains [this behavior].

After a review of thousands of pages of accounts, five characteristics of the Armenian genocide stand out:

- Sexual atrocities and bodily mutilation were integral to the genocidal process.

- Turks competed with pride to develop the most diabolical methods of torture (i.e., horseshoeing men; mutilation of ear, nose and eyes; women’s severed breasts and nipples collected for display; stuffing steel wool up a man’s anus and into his penis; progressive dismemberment of victim limbs).

- Intimate tortures and prolonged deaths were the preferred approach.

- Family members were, wherever possible, required to witness atrocities.
Methods of degradation were, wherever possible, designed to maximize perpetrator amusement.

There have been many documentaries and films about the Armenian Genocide, including a PBS documentary narrated by Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, Jared Leto, and Julianna Margulies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF71ruYqJxM).

I will end with a quote by Adolf Hitler, who many historians believe was inspired by the Armenian Genocide.

I have issued the command — and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad — that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

Adolf Hitler - August 22, 1939

 

[Jasper]

Turkish condolences to Armenians

Turkey's prime minister has offered his condolences over the massacre of Armenians during World War I, calling it 'our shared pain', the country's most significant overture yet over the deeply divisive episode.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statement on Wednesday, on the eve of the 99th anniversary of the start of mass deportations of Armenians in 1915, is the first such overt comment by a Turkish leader over the killings, considered by many as the first genocide of the 20th century.

He acknowledged that the events of 1915 had 'inhumane consequences' but also said it was 'inadmissible' for them to be used as an excuse today for hostility against Turkey.

'The incidents of the First World War are our shared pain,' said Erdogan in what Turkish media described as an unexpected statement that was issued in several languages, including Armenian.

Armenia has been trying to get Turkey to recognise the killings of up to 1.5 million people under the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

But Turkey puts the death toll at 500,000 and says they died of fighting and starvation during World War I, categorically rejecting the term 'genocide'.

'Millions of people of all religions and ethnicities lost their lives in the First World War,' Erdogan said.

'Having experienced events which had inhumane consequences - such as relocation - during the First World War, should not prevent Turks and Armenians from establishing compassion and mutually humane attitudes towards one another.

'It is our hope and belief that the peoples of an ancient and unique geography, who share similar customs and manners, will be able to talk to each other about the past with maturity and to remember together their losses in a decent manner.

'And it is with this hope and belief that we wish that the Armenians who lost their lives in the context of the early 20th century rest in peace, and we convey our condolences to their grandchildren,' he said.

Washington welcomed what it said was 'Prime Minister Erdogan's public acknowledgement of the suffering that Armenians experienced in 1915'.

The arrest and massacre of 2000 Armenian leaders accused of collaborating with the Ottoman Empire's enemy Russia began in Istanbul on April 24, 1915, and in less than a year hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly displaced, their possessions seized and many killed.

A century on, the killings still fuel bitter controversy, often upsetting relations between Turkey and the West.

But there have been gradual signs of change in Turkey, with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last year calling the events of 1915-1916 a 'mistake' and an 'inhuman act' during a trip to the Armenian capital Yerevan.

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/worl...lences-to-armenians.html#sthash.v1rBUlOJ.dpuf

 

[RustyNails]

Where's Erdogan's condolences?
Edit: spoke too soon. There it is.

 

[Jasper]

The Turkish government have just translated Erdogan's condolences of the Armenian genocide in nine different languages, and have published it on every Turkish consulate website in the world.

This is extremely odd, because the Turkish government (including Erdogan himself) have strenuously denied the accusations for decades. There's even a law in Turkey where you are not allowed to utter a word about what happened to the Armenians, or you can be thrown in jail (and some have) for doing so.

Something's definitely up...the Turkish government probably know the shit is going to hit the fan next year for the massive 100th anniversary.

Possibly a full national apology next year?

 

[Socreges]

The Turkish government have just translated Erdogan's condolences of the Armenian genocide in nine different languages, and have published it on every Turkish consulate website in the world.

This is extremely odd, because the Turkish government (including Erdogan himself) have strenuously denied the accusations for decades. There's even a law in Turkey where you are not allowed to utter a word about what happened to the Armenians, or you can be thrown in jail (and some have) for doing so.

Something's definitely up...the Turkish government probably know the shit is going to hit the fan next year for the massive 100th anniversary.

Possibly a full national apology next year?

So cynical.

... yet likely accurate. A very surprising 180 by the Turkish gov't.

 

[Dead Man]

Regardless of the reason, it's progress.

 

[Dogfacedgod]

My wife if Armenian and this is surprising to say the least.

 

[harSon]

Is this related to the Assyrian Genocide at all? I recall a lot of my Assyrian friends mentioning something along these lines around April/May.

 

[Jasper]

Somewhat....

The Assyrian Genocide = 270,000-750,000 Assyrians were killed by the Turks.

The Greek Genocide = 750,000-900,000 Greeks were killed by the Turks.

Though separate genocides, they did all occur around the same period.