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Secret Meetings the Turkish Genocide of the Armenians

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Secret Meetings the Turkish Genocide of the Armenians MINUTES SECRET MEETINGS ORGANIZING THE TURKISH GENOCIDE OF THE ARMENIANS WHAT TURKISH SOURCES SAY ON THE SUBJECT BY HAIGAZ K. KAZARIAN A PUBLICATION OF THE COMMEMORATIVE COMMITTEE ON THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE TURKISH MASSACRES OF THE ARMENIANS 212 Stuart Street, Boston, Massachusetts 1965 This is the third in a series of publications being issued during the Fiftieth Anniversary Year of the 1915 Turkish Genocide of the Armenians. To receive additional copies of this pamphlet, and the first in this series, "Turkey: Author of Genocide," write "Pamphlets," 212 Stuart Street, Boston 16, Mass. MINUTES OF SECRET MEETINGS ORGANIZING THE TURKISH GENOCIDE OF ARMENIANS By HAIGAZ K. KAZARIAN In an effort to destroyall traces of the evidence, the Turkish Government by October of 1918 had carefully removed from its archives all incriminating evidence-the minutes of the secret meetings to organize the Armenian massacres, as well as all documentary literature pertaining to the Armenian deportations of 1915. This documentary literature also included the correspondence of the ministers with the governors of the provinces of the Ottoman empire and their subordinates-the Valis, the Mutessarifs and the Kaimakams, the orders of the Ministry of War to the commanders of the army, circular letters, and similar accessory communications in regard to the deportations and accompanying confiscations. Another part of this incriminating literature were the correspondence, the cipher telegrams and the code letters of the infamous machine of massacres which was called Teshkilati Makhsoussich. In the beginning of 1918, before the flight of Talaat Pasha (the author of the Armenian Deportations), Aziz Bey who was a leading member of the Teshkilati Makhsoussich and former Minister of Internal Security, before his dismissal, removed from the government archives not only the complete set of documents of the Teshkilati Makhsoussich but all the secret correspondence of the Central Government, and never returned them. Nevertheless, when after the Armistice a court martial was organized to try the authors of the massacres, among the papers of the 5th sub- committee of the Ottoman Parliament, there came to light a number of documents which proved the existence of cipher telegrams and code letters authorizing the formation of brigand bands consisting of released con- victs for the purpose of massacring the Armenians, as early as November of 1914. We have now access to some of these documents dated November 16, 1914, November 20, December 16 and 19, 1914, long before: the Turkish rout at Sari-Kamish and the resistance stands in self-defense in Van, conclusively proving the formation of brigand bands for the purpose of massacring the Armenians in the regions of Ismidt, Balikesir, Samson and Brusa, as early as November and December of 1914. The Turks have published a series of books to justify their crimes. The first of these, in old Turkish script, is entitled "Ermeni_ Komitelerinin Harekiati Ikhtilalieleri_ Meshrutietden Evvel ve Sonra," (Revolutionary Movements of Armenian Political Parties Before and After the Proclamation of the Ottoman Constitution), 1916, published by the Government Publishing House (Matbaayi Amireh). A similar pack of lies was a book in French entitled "La Questionne Turco-Armenienne" (The Turkish-Armenian Ques- tion) by one Alfred Rustem, published in Berne, Switzerland. Rustem was a Polish Jew who married a Turkish woman and became a Turk. He changed his name Alfred to Ahmed and became Ahmed Rustem.His book was published in 1918. Before World War I, in the 1910's, Ahmed Rustem was Turkish Ambassador in Washington, a post which he kept until 1916 and he ex- ploited his office to feed the American press a stream of lies and so-called "refutations." The American Government put up with him until the beginning of 1916 when the State Department invited him for an interview, and without saying a word, handed him his papers and expelled him from the country. In 1919 he joined the ranks of Mustafa Kemal. His book is a replica of the first Turkish book with such shopworn charges as: "The Armenians were disloyal," "the Armenians had arms and munitions," "the Armenians had bombs," "the Armenians were deported for reasons of military security," and similar lies, completely ignoring the fact that, as early as in the autumn of 1914, the execution of the massacres was begun, the Turkish Government having taken advantage of the world war. After Rustem, in 1928 Halideh Edib Hanum published two volumes of her Memoirs (in English) about the Armenians, a tedious repetition of the lies and the slanders of the former two books. In 1950, another Turk by the name of Assad Ouras, a former police chief according to information, published a volume of 785 pages, Turkish in Latin script. This work, published in Ankara, is a non-scientific work full of faulty statistics, outwardly impartial, but intrinsically a slanderous work, highly similar to its predecessors, making the Armenian the culprit and the Turk the innocent victim. Worthy of attention is an important book of another Turk named Mevlan Zadeh Rifat, entitled "Turkia Inklabinin Ich Yuzu" (The Inner Facet of the Turkish Revolution), in old Turkish and consisting of four parts, published in 1929 by the EZ Vakit printing house of Aleppo, Syria. This work, too, repeats the same views which the Ittidahist Damad Ferid Pasha repeated before the Paris Peace Conference in June of 1919; "The Turks suffered far more casualties during the war than did the Armenians." According to Mevlan Zadeh Rifat, the atrocities which were committed during the Ittihad regime were the work solely of the Ittihad and the 2 brigand bands whose number was approximately eight to ten thousand, and that, the Turks of Anatolia were innocent. As to the deportations and the attendant massacres, these were triggered by the Armenian volunteers, following the revolt of Van and the occupation of the fort of Shabin Karahissar, History generally reinforces its facts with specific dates, yet in all these Turkish books a specific date is never mentioned, to becloud the exact truth and to promote confusion of minds. Fortunately, we have access to a mass of official documents which are dated and which facilitate the determination of the truth and which clearly prove that the massacre of the Armenians was a deliberate plan of the Turkish Government. Should an impartial tribunal examine the above mentioned Turkish works, it assuredly would throw the greater part of them into the sewer. Apparently Melvan Zadeh Rifat hated the Ittihad an he makes a series of disclosures which we translate literally from the Turkish original: "The Ittihad and Terakki held in its hand the Ottoman Empire. The generals and army officers who were, members of that Party received their education in Germany and they trusted the German invincibility. (page 4). "The Ittihadist leaders were under German influence and when the two German cruisers entered Turkish waters, Turkey presumably bought them from the Germans. Said Halim, the Turkish Prime Minister, went to the Ittihad heaquarters to communicate the news but they already knew all about it and talked about the occupation of Egypt and the Caucasus as well as about opening the way to Turan (page 7). During these consulations, Djavid had told them that the country is bankrupt and they have no money, but Enver had assured them that Germany will give them money. When Turkey joined the war the Germans established a military staff at the Straits. The German Ambassador Wangenheim appeared before the Merkezi Oumoumi (Ittihad headquarters) and said to them 'What more do you want? Bulgaria shall be our ally. You shall crush the other elements (the Armenians) who pose as an obstacle on your path. You shall occupy the Caucasus and shall open the highway to Turan (page 13). If you hesitate one week more you shall lose everything. "Enver has told them that Germany has extended us its hand and we cannot reject their offer of alliance (page 25)." The fact of the matter is, ten days before these consultations, August 2, 1914, the alliance had already been signed in secret. According to Milvan Zadeh, one of the men who triggered the war was the Jew Carasso, a Zionist and a leader of Free Masons who was also an influential member of the Ittihad. It should be noted also, that it was this same Carasso who through the Austrian Foreign Minister Ehrenthal, a Jew, who, on September 1, 1901, through the medium of Wiener Bank 3 Verein, in behalf of the Zionists, had made an offer to Sultan Hamid of a loan of 20,000,000 gold pounds ($100,000,000) without interest, and an additional bonus of 5,000,000 pounds ($25,000,000) in return for the cession of a piece of land to the south of Lake Tiberius (Palestine) for a Jewish homeland (page 73)." THE ITTIHAD, THE WAR, AND THE INTERNAL FACET OF THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT Milvan Zadeh continues: "In the autumn of 1914 the war had become intensified. The British and French fleets had not yet forced the Dardanelles. The Straits were closed and yet the seacoast was under blockade. Russia had sent the important units of the Caucasian army to the border and had taken a defensive position. The man who became Vice Generalissimo, (Enver) wanted to inspect the Russian fronts, and when he learned that the Russian forces defending the Caucasian front were weak, driven by a desire to win new laurels for himself, had a childish notion, and disregarding the hardships of the winter and the problem of logistics so far from the center, assuming the command, wanted to attack the Russians. The commander of the Caucasian front, Damad Hafiz Ismayil Hakki Pasha had disapproved the project and had called the chief officers of the army to a consultation.
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