turkishpac · these documents are attributed to talaat pasha by aram andonian, but they were proven...

TurkishPAC

TURKISH AMERICAN HERITAGE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE

A Texas Non-Profit Corporation since October 30, 2006 (File Number 800727796) www.turkishpac.org ~ [email protected]

February 1, 2007 First Name, Last Name; US Congress Address Line 1 Address Line 2

Dear First Name, Last Name:

Turkish-American Community in the US is viewing with great concern the submission of a new “Armenian Genocide” draft Bill to the House of Representatives by Democratic Congressmen Adam Schiff and Frank Pallone, joined by Republican Congressmen George Radanovich and Joe Knollenberg.

We are writing this letter on behalf of the Turkish American Heritage Political Action Committee (TurkishPAC), to appeal to your sense of fairness and your respect for truth. Scholarly approach to historical disputes requires that each and every statement by any special interest group be taken cum granum salis and be subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny.

Accusing a nation of as heinous a crime as “Genocide” is no trivial matter. The accuser must furnish objective evidence and the accused must receive the right of defense and the benefit of the doubt. Historical truth and one’s national heritage should not be made prey to petty political and economic gain. We, therefore, implore you to peruse with an open mind the few evidence we humbly present in defense of Turkey, our country of origin, and her people. We argue that:

1. Not all Armenians during the tragic 1895-1918 incidents in Anatolia were innocent. Some rebelled, formed armed guerrilla and terrorist groups, joined the invading Russian and French armies and massacred Muslims. 2. The Ottoman Empire relocated Armenians in the Eastern (Russian) front mostly to other habitable and peaceful locations within its boundaries, for self defense, while taking precautions for their protection en route. 3. There is absolutely no archival evidence for Ottoman Central Government’s intention to eliminate Armenians simply because they were Armenians. There were numerous deaths on both sides, due to war, disease, hunger and civil strife.

We sincerely hope that the enclosed evidence will touch your conscience and speak to everything that stands for justice in your soul. And when the time comes to discuss the “genocide bill” on the House Floor, we hope that before you commit to a political stance in front of the American Public and the World, you will stand up and demand to listen to the OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY. The Openness Principle requires that both sides of a controversial issue be heard before passing judgment. The right to self-defense is a cherished American tradition.

Most respectfully yours, President Executive Secretary

Encl: Arguments (3 pages), References (1 pages), and Selected Archival Evidence (23 pages)

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A Texas Non-Profit Corporation since October 30, 2006 (File Number 800727796) www.turkishpac.org [email protected]

II. ARGUMENTS 1. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO ARCHIVAL EVIDENCE (NOT ONE) THAT SUPPORTS THE

ARMENIAN ACCUSATIONS. This may sound too inflated for an opening statement but the fact is, it represents the absolute truth: In technical terms, there is not a shred of evidence for:

a. “Bare malice” (the mental element of Genocide), and b. “Centrally planned action” (the physical element of Genocide)

by the Ottoman Government for the extermination of the Armenian population of the Empire, stemming out of hatred just because the “victims” were Armenians.

2. For over 20 years, Turks (including myself) have been inviting Armenian academicians and politicians

to scholarly discussions, where each side can produce scientifically irrefutable evidence to back up their claims. Sadly, every time the Turkish side is turned down. An example from my personal experience with Professor Peter Balakian is enclosed (Page 1).

I also reproduced Professor Balakian’s enclosure (published in NY Times) for your perusal (Pages 2, 3). Please note that any statement by “Genocide Scholars” therein can be countered by an equally strong group of other professionals, as can be seen in the subsequent document (Page 4), also published in the NY Times. Hopefully, this could be a first indication that the debate is far from settled.

3. The only “proof” of Ottoman central administrative directives to the effect of “racially selective

elimination”, that the Armenians have been referring to are the Naim Bey Letters. These documents are attributed to Talaat Pasha by Aram Andonian, but they were proven to be forgeries by Profs. Ataov, Orel and Yuca1,2.

4. The contention that Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were unarmed and innocent (Page 3,

Paragraph 2, Line 2) is a myth. There is ample documentation that armed Armenian separatists, who belonged to the Daschnaktzoutioun and Huntchakist Parties, wreaked havoc in the eastern vilayets (provinces) of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire between early 1890s and mid 1910s.

a. Memoirs by Armenian, American and British military and missionary personnel serve as

silent witnesses to the atrocities committed by the Armenian guerillas on the (truly) unarmed and innocent Turkish, Azerbaijani and Tatar villages3-6

b. The head of the Armenian Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, Boghos Nubar Pasha, openly admits in letters to the French Foreign Minister and to NY Times that “Armenians were de facto belligerents in this [World] war [I], claiming a piece of the Ottoman pie (Page 5, translated on Page 6).

c. The letter by Cyrus Hamlin, a Massachusetts Congregationalist missionary in Turkey and founder of Roberts College unequivocally documents the aversely militant Daschnak tactics (Pages 7, 8).

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ARGUMENTS (Cont’d)

d. We are in the process of having an American scholar translate a speech given in Hungary

in 1923, by Hovhannes Kachaznouni, the first Prime Minister of the Independent Republic of Armenia. The notes are published as a book, entitled “The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Daschnakzootiun) Has Nothing to Do Anymore”. The few copies of the original in Armenian, banned in Armenia, are no longer available as it has mysteriously disappeared from the archives and libraries around the world. We serendipitously came across a 1928 translation into Russian in the Lenin Library in Moscow. Of all the available archival material, this is by far the most damning to the Armenian thesis of an “unarmed, innocent and unsuspecting Christian minority”

5. The claims that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred (a number that grows linearly every

decade) is wrong. The census figures by the Ottomans7, French official envoys (Page 9), the German Embassy (Page 10), the British envoys and the Armenian Patriarchate (Page 11) prove a two-fold truth:

a. That there was no Armenian majority anywhere in the Eastern Vilayets and Sanjaks of

the Ottoman Empire ante bellum, and b. That the total number of Armenians ante bellum was far less than 1.5 million souls, the

number of “Genocide victims”, as claimed by Armenians.

Furthermore, the total number of refugees accounted for in Allied-held territories post bellum, as reported by Boghos Nubar (Page 12), should be taken into account and subtracted from the ante bellum figures to account for those perished.

6. Death and misery befell on all subjects of the Empire at the throes of war through killings, disease, starvation, elements, etc. regardless of ethnicity, religion, age or gender. The number of deaths and refugees among Muslims in Eastern Anatolia between 1914 and 1921 is estimated at 1,190,000 and 900,000, respectively7,8 (Page 13). Most of these souls were killed by Armenian guerillas, for the only reason that they were Muslim. Yet, the Turks never claimed Genocide, nor have these deaths ever been mourned in the West. The aim of these Russian-supported and Western-approved massacres was to create an Armenian majority through ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the “Historic Armenian Homeland” (a vaguely defined territory reaching “from sea to sea”, which was neither historic, nor Armenian, nor home to anybody but Turks since the turn of the second millennium).

7. The romantic/nationalistic emotions of Armenian separatists, who had so eagerly prepared for

armed rebellion and war (Page14), were unscrupulously exploited by rival Empires in order to repeat, in the Eastern Theatre, the scenario of the Balkan national emancipations and to further accelerate the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The refugees were then ruthlessly abandoned to their fate in exile by the same Powers after the Turkish victory in the first anti-imperialist struggle of the 20th century.

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8. Some 140 high-ranking Ottoman officials (including Cabinet ministers) accused of atrocities against Armenians were tried on the Island of Malta and set free for lack of evidence by the victorious British (the 1919-1921 “Malta Tribunals”). The British, who occupied Istanbul at the time and had access to Ottoman archives, searched everywhere, even in the American government’s archives for incriminating evidence against Turks, but could find none. The Armenian propagandists, in their desperation, tried to produce the Andonian Letters at this juncture. Of course, these were not used by the British, who saw their forged nature. Today, some apologists (e.g. Professor Samantha Power9) argue that the Malta detainees were released upon pressure by the Kemalist Government in Anatolia. But this accusation is invalid since Mustafa Kemal was far from wielding any power to exert such pressure on the British in 1921.

9. Unfortunately, Armenian assassins picked up their bloody weapons again in the 20s, 80s and 90s, when they assassinated the already court-martialed (by the British at Malta) and acquitted Ottoman politicians, scores of Turkish diplomats and thousands of Azerbaijanis, respectively. It is not even necessary to elaborate the killings of Talaat and others, of the Turkish Consuls and aids around the world, and the victims of Khojali in Azerbaijan, among others here. Those can be found very easily in recent press excerpts. I would like to illustrate, however, one very striking example of Armenian fraud (Page 15). A picture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Republic of Turkey, doctored to pause in front of a dead child (Armenian, Turkish, Assyrian, Kurdish, Azerbaijani, other?). THIS IS THE EXTENT TO WHICH ARMENIAN PROPAGANDA TACTICS CAN CROSS OVER INTO THE UNETHICAL.

10. The proponents of “Armenian Genocide” never speak of Admiral Bristol, the American Ambassador at Istanbul, but quote liberally his predecessor, Henry Morgenthau (served 1913-1916). Henry Morgenthau was closely identified with Christian missionary activities in Anatolia; his source of information for his anti-Turkish allegations was the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul. His close association with Adolf S. Ochs, the owner of New York Times, was responsible for the 194 anti-Turkish articles published in that newspaper in 1915 alone, another very striking example of censorship of the press. Morgenthau and Ochs would later jointly object to the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine (Page 16). Admiral Mark Bristol, on the other hand, served as the Commander of the US Naval Detachment in Turkish waters and as the US High Commissioner to Turkey during the years 1919-1927. He protested vehemently to the spreading of the false information in the US, and called the forged reports an outrage (Page 17).

11. The last example I would like to present is the sworn testimony of a Californian Rabbi, born a Sephardic Jew in Ottoman territories, from where he immigrated to the US in 1910 as a child (Pages 18-22). Rigorous scientific methodology deems eyewitness testimonies unacceptable as primary historical source, as these may bear the subjective imprints, proclivities and prejudices of the individual. This last piece of evidence should therefore be a reminder that all “proof” of Armenian accusations consists exclusively of such testimonials and hearsay as this one. TO THIS DATE, I DID NOT SEE A SINGLE PIECE OF ARCHIVAL EVIDENCE SUPPORTING THE ARMENIAN THESES OF “HISTORICAL ARMENIAN HOMELAND”, ”UNARMED AND INNOCENT CHRISTIAN MINORITY”, OR “GENOCIDE”; AND I DON’T KNOW OF ANYONE WHO HAS.

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REFERENCES 1. Turkkaya Ataov, The Andonian (Naim Bey) Letters or Documents , http://karabakh-

doc.azerall.info/ru/armyanstvo/arm39eng.php 2. Sinasi Orel and Sureyya Yuca, The Talaat Pasha Telegrams: Historical Fact or Armenian Fiction?

Rustem & Brother, London. 1986. 3. Leonard A. Hartill, Men Are Like That, Bobbs Co., Indianapolis, 1926

(Memoirs of an Armenian Army Officer translated into English and published by a member of American "Near East Relief Organization". It gives the whole account of the genocide of all Turkish and Moslem people in Armenia organized and executed by Armenian Government and Army. Also gives account of countless other massacres and atrocities against the Turkish people in Armenia).

4. A. Rawlinson, Adventures in the Near East, 1918-22, Dodd, Meade & Co., 1925

(An eyewitness account of the same genocide by a British Army Officer). 5. Robert Dunn, World Alive, A Personal Story, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1952

(An eyewitness account of the same genocide by an American Officer). 6. Avetis Aharonian, From Sardarapat to Serves and Lousanne, The Armenian Review Magazine, Volume 15-17,

1962-4 (Memoirs of the chief Armenian delegate to the Paris Peace Conference were published in the Armenian Review Magazine in 13 articles from Fall 1962 to Spring 1964. These memoirs include an interview between Aharonian and British Foreign Minister Lord Curzon in which above-mentioned genocide was discussed. The official report mentioned by Lord Curzon is the report of British High Commissioner to Caucasia, Sir Oliver Wardrop).

7. Ottoman Archives http://www.devletarsivleri.gov.tr/kitap/ On the left column, go down and click on

ERMENİLER TARAFINDAN YAPILAN KATLİAM BELGELERİ (1914-1921), translated as Documents to Massacres by Armenians. These primary sources are available in Ottoman Turkish with Arabic script, only.

(It is the Turkish Governments negligence of not having these translated by esteemed international scholars into English that caused the Armenians to go rampant with their claims of “Genocide” for 80+ years. We, at TurkishPAC, are in the process of seeking American academicians of Ottoman History and language to have these documents translated. We are also working with American scholars experts in Russian to have primary Russian archival material translated).

8. Justin Mc. Carthy, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, The Darwin

Press, Inc, Princeton, NJ, 1995 p.339 (Many Armenian scholars, Professor Balakian among them, consider Prof. McCarthy an agent of the Turkish Government. Again, we await their evidence for these accusations)

9. Samantha Power, A Problem From Hell. America and the Age of Genocide, Harper Perennial; Reprint edition May 6, 2003.

(Professor Power is a long-time proponent of the Armenian thesis. The first chapter of her book is dedicated to the “Armenian Genocide”, where she mainly quotes from the 194 articles printed in the NY Times in 1915. The most “archival” evidence from her Pulitzer Prize winning book is shown on Page 23)

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A Texas Non-Profit Corporation since October 30, 2006 (File Number 800727796)


www.turkishpac.org [email protected]

III. ARCHIVAL EVIDENCE

Personal Correspondence with Professor Peter Balakian

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Reproduction of Professor Balakian’s Enclosure

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Reproduction of Professor Balakian’s Enclosure (Cont’d)

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Genocide Scholars’ Declaration Sent by Prof. Balakian: A Counter Argument by Historians

(Published in NY Times, 1983)

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The letter of American Missionary, Cyrus Hamlin, exposing Armenian militia tactics for attracting

the attention of the West to “atrocities towards the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire”

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A Transcript of the Cyrus Hamlin Letter, printed for ease of legibility

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Yellow Book Statistics Showing the Total Number of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the Overwhelming Majority of Muslims over Greeks and Armenians Combined

1. There was no Armenian majority in the land ante bellum,

2. Total Armenian population was significantly less than the 1.5 M souls claimed to have been killed

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German Embassy Census, Limiting the Total Number or Armenians to Less Than ½ Million

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Numbers Provided by the British Envoy and the Armenian Patriarchate

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Letter of Boghos Nubar to M. Gout from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris

11 December 1918

The general is admitting that 6 to 700,000 souls have been deported, of which 390,000 have been accounted for in Allied held territories post bellum. This effectively limits to 210,000 to 310,000, the number of the dead due to deportations (a far cry from the 1.5 million, as claimed by today’s

Diaspora)

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The Number of Muslims Killed or Displaced During 1827-1927 (Adapted from Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile, 1995)

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Distortion of Facts by Doctoring of Archival Photographs

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News Showing Opposition of Ochs and Morgenthau to a Zionist Homeland in Palestine

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Sworn Testimony of Albert J. Amateu A Sephardic Jew Born in the Ottoman Empire

and Immigrated to the US in 1910 (Pages 18-22; 5 Pages, total)

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Excerpt from the Pulitzer Prize Winning Book, ‘A Problem from Hell. America and the Age of Genocide’, by Harvard Professor Samantha Power.

One can not help but wonder which of the four survived the “Turkish slaughter”. JP Mirak cannot help

because he passed before the book was written. The Professor was unavailable to discuss primary evidence of her accusations until November 2007 (personal communication at James Baker III Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX).