By Masood Abdali
US President Joe Biden termed the deaths of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 a genocide. Both the former presidents of the USA, Barack Obama and Donald Trump refused to declare the loss of Armenian lives as genocide during World War I despite the immense pressure from Congress. Trump who had an extreme negative behaviour towards Muslims had also said it clearly that his administration does not consider the mass murder of Armenian people by the Turkish army during the First World War as genocide.
Armenians commemorate every April 24 for 1.5 million people allegedly killed by the Ottoman army a century ago. According to Armenian historians, hundreds of thousands of Armenian people living in Asia Minor were pushed south in the Syrian Desert from 1915 to 1923 by the order of Ottoman Defence Minister Enver Pasha before the establishment of modern Turkey.
Those people also suffered forced labour besides the pain of hunger and thirst in this long walking journey, whereas Turkish soldiers are also blamed for raping Armenian women.
President Biden said in his statement issued on the anniversary of the Armenian massacre, “we are remembering all those people who were killed during the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman era.” The US president said he was not blaming anyone but the civilised world wants to make sure that whatever happened does not get repeated.
As expected, Turkey has denounced the statement of the US president with a strong reaction. President Biden had informed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about this a day before issuing the statement. According to the media, this telephonic talk was very unpleasant and the Turkish president had already warned that it could bring an irreparable loss to Turk-US relations and confidence.
Ankara’s stance on this matter is that Armenian people were killed during a war which is called collateral damage. Turkey shares the sorrow of the Armenian people and the Turkish government regrets the heavy loss of lives and belongings. However, most of the deaths were a result of the Russian bombing.
Turkish President Erdogan requested in a message to an Armenian bishop in Istanbul to appoint a team consisting of Armenian and Turkish historians and experts that would present a report after a historical analysis of this whole incident.
“Turkey is ready to bear all the expenses of research work. Making opinions and blaming by irrelevant people are creating tensions when only historians have a right to talk on this issue,” said Erdogan.
A brief historical background of this issue shows that the Crusaders attacked Turkey from all sides at the beginning of 1914. Russia attacked eastern Anatolia in December 1914. A fierce contest took place near the Turkish city of Sarikamish. Britain, France, Russia, Australia and New Zealand attacked Çanakkale (formerly Dardanellia) to capture the sea route to the Black Sea, consisting Sea of Marmara, Dardanelles Strait and Bosporus Strait. The campaign is known as the Battle of Gallipoli.
The Russian army got help from French, Turkish and Armenian guerilla fighters in the Battle of Sarikamish. The war ended in Turkish defeat and the whole region fell to the Russians. An important incident happened during this war when a fatwa (a religious decree) was issued by the Grand Mufti declaring the capture of the resources of Armenian “dhimmi” (a non-Muslim living in a state governed by Sharia law) as haraam (forbidden) under the military necessity after an emergency was announced by the Ottomans, and the fatwa also ordered of returning jizya (a special tax) money. Allama Iqbal has talked about this as “the belongings of dhimmi is forbidden for the Muslim army.” This fatwa became famous in the whole city.
Hundreds of thousands of Armenian people migrated to Syria to avoid the destruction of war. A lot of people died due to harsh weather conditions. Armenians say 1.5 million people, including women, children and older, died because of the forced expulsion and they consider it as a genocide and the worst crime against humanity by the Ottomans.
On the other side, the Turkish have a stance that Armenian people decided to migrate to Syria on their own in search of a safer place. As many as 25,000 Turkish soldiers also froze to death.
Around 700,000 soldiers died in the battles of Sarikamish and Gallipoli whereas there is no estimate of the civilian loss.
An independent and neutral investigation of these incidents is necessary to find out the truth.
Dr Philip Sanders, a well-known law expert, told Fareed Zakaria in an interview on CNN, “the term of genocide was coined in 1945 and it’s unjust applying it to an incident which happened 30 years before. Whatever happened with the Red Indians, the native Americans, also need to be studied carefully. Likewise, the Muslims were massacred in Bosnia on the basis of religion.”The irony is that the USA is blaming the Ottomans for killing that happened 100 years ago but can’t see the genocide going on in Gaza. Moreover, Washington and Britain are not even ready to allow the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an independent investigation of the alleged war crimes of Israel against the people of Palestine.
