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Brave Turkish Writers’ Armenian Genocide Apology Letter, Churchill’s crimes & UK, US, Turkish denial

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 9 December 2008
6 comments

Discriminations-Minorit. International History

Some very courageous Turkish academics and writers have risked backlash and issued an Open Letter making an Apology for the Turkey-inflicted WW1 Armenian Genocide that killed as many as 1.5 million Armenians (for a recent news report see The Age, Melbourne, “Uproar over apology to Armenians”: http://www.theage.com.au/world/upro... ).

These courageous Turkish intellectuals – notably scholars, Ahmet Insel, Baskin Oran and Professor Cengiz Aktar (from Istanbul’s University of Bahcesehir), and a journalist, Ali Bayramoglu - risk prosecution, imprisonment and violent persecution in Turkey, a country that officially denies the Armenian Genocide and recently lobbied successfully (together with pro-Israeli Zionist groups) to stop Congress officially recognizing the reality of the WW1 Armenian Genocide (up to 1.5 million Armenians killed 1915-1923).

Key quote from the Open Letter by these decent and courageous Turkish intellectuals: "My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathise with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologise to them."

The Turkish mass killing of Armenians (the Armenian Genocide) was initiated on 24 April 1915 (a day recognized by Armenians as Armenian Genocide Day), a day before the landing of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac), UK and other Allied forces at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 (recognized as Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand) in the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign that was the brain-child of bellicose, anti-Asian, anti-Indian, pro-Zionist imperialist Winston Churchill.

For detailed summary of Churchill’s links to the Armenian Genocide, the Indian Holocaust and the Palestinian Genocide see “Media lying over Churchill’s crimes. British-Indian Holocaust” : http://mwcnews.net/content/view/267... ; Churchill was responsible for the disastrous 1915 WW1 Dardanelles Campaign in Turkey that killed 0.2 million Allied and Turkish soldiers and helped to precipitate the 1915-1923 Turkish Armenian Genocide that killed up to 1.5 million Armenians - a genocide that the holocaust-denying Turks, racist Zionists of Apartheid Israel and US Congressmen refuse to acknowledge as such.

However Winston Churchill, our deserved hero for leading Britain in the war against Nazism, was involved in other immense crimes against humanity e.g. the following crimes against INDIANS (a section of Humanity that Churchill hated as revealed by his 1942 assertion “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion”) (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/267... ), QUOTE : “Churchill was actively involved in the genocidal suppression of India and vehemently opposed Indian self-determination [1757-1947 excess deaths, 1.8 billion; Victorian era excess deaths, 1837-1901 0.5 billion; 1901-1947 excess deaths 0.4 billion; avoidable deaths in the 1895-1897 famine about 1 million; 1899-1900 Indian Famine, 6-9 million deaths; 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust deaths 6-7 million] …Churchill acknowledged the crucial importance of maintaining Hindu-Muslim antipathy to preserve British rule [1 million dead and 18 million Muslim and Hindu refugees associated with India-Pakistan Partition in 1947] … Churchill over-rode strong British military objections in 1944 to decide on Partition of Palestine [in 1948 Jews were 1/3 of the population; there are now over 7 million Palestinian refugees; post-1967 Occupied Palestinian excess deaths 0.3 million, post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million; excess deaths in countries partially or completely occupied by Apartheid Israel now total about 24 million; 4 million Occupied Palestinians still illegally and abusively imprisoned by racist Zionist goons in their own country] …Churchill hated Muslims, Arabs and Indians and remorselessly refused food to 6-7 million starving Indians, rejected Viceroy Wavell’s pleas and blocked Canadian attempts at relief [6-7 million Indian deaths – the British Bengali Holocaust death toll being numerically greater than the 5-6 million dead in the Nazi German Jewish Holocaust; see Moon, P. (1973) (editor), Wavell. The Viceroy’s Journal (Oxford University Press, London) ] "

For detailed accounts of the Armenian Genocide see Chalk, F. & Jonassohn, K. (1990), The History and Sociology of Genocide. Analyses and Case Studies (Yale University Press, New Haven); Taylor, T. (2008) Denial. History betrayed (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne); and Tatz, C. (2003), With Intent to Destroy. Reflecting on Genocide (Verso, London); see also “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” , G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and the updated 2008 edition of “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2008 : http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ .

An excellent recent book by Professor Tony Taylor on holocaust denial and , in part about Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide, entitled "Denial. History betrayed" is a book that that everyone should read and every library should carry. However genocide ignoring and holocaust ignoring is so pervasive in the Western Mainstream Establishment media, academic, political and general culture (a Culture of Ignoring as outlined in the article “Climate Emergency, Exceptionalism and Ignoring Downunder. Letter to eminent Australians over public honesty” : http://mwcnews.net/content/view/257...) that this otherwise excellent Mainstream Anglo book, published by a prestigious Mainstream Anglo publisher, itself ignores major 20th century and ongoing 21st century holocausts and genocides due to Anglo-American imperialism (notably the 6-7 million Indians starved to death in WW2 by the British and the 9-11 million avoidable deaths, so far, in the Bush Wars, 1990-2008) (see “”Denial. History betrayed” by Tony Taylor. “Denial” book ignores UK & US genocide crimes”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/264... ).

Unfortunately Churchill’s additional malignant legacy has been British, American, Zionist and Australian adoption of Churchill’s holocaust denying, specifically his famous "history is written by the victors" (NO mention of the 6-7 million 1943-1945 Bengal Famine victims or indeed of the Bengal Famine in his Nobel Prize-winning, 6 volume book series “The Second World War”), has ensured continuance of Anglo-American and Zionist atrocities involving invasion, occupation, devastation and genocide - in relation to Occupiers (in parenthesis) 1950-2005 excess deaths in post-1945 occupied countries total 36 million (Belgium) 142 million (France), 24 million (Apartheid Israel), 0.7 million (Apartheid South Africa), 23 million (Portugal), 37 million (Russia), 9 million (Spain), 727 million (the UK) and 82 million (the US); 25 million Indigenous excess deaths in post-1950 US Asian Wars; 9-11 million excess deaths associated with 1990-2008 Bush Wars; post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Iraq 2 million, refugees 6 million; post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan 4-6 million, refugees 4 million).

What can decent people do about Turkish, American, Israeli and Zionist DENIAL of the Armenian Genocide – and indeed of continuing Western IGNORING of the Indian Holocaust and the immense carnage from the continuing 1990-2008 Bush Wars involving, so far, 9-11 million excess deaths (see “(-11 excuse for US global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity: millions dead (9-11 million) in Bush wars”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/251... ) ?

Note that the Armenian Genocide involved the murder of 1.5 MILLION Armenian men , women and children by the Turks (see “Armenian Genocide”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armeni... ); the Indian Holocaust involved 1.8 BILLION avoidable deaths in the British Raj and Native States, 1757-1947 (see: 2008 edition of “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2008 : http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) ; 10 million dead in the post-1857 British massacres of Indians (see Amaresh Misra’s book "War of Civilizations: India AD 1857" on the post-1857 massacre of 10 million Indians by the British that was launched by the Vice-President of India in New Delhi on March 07, 2008: http://vicepresidentofindia.nic.in/... ); and 6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by the British in the World War 2 Bengal Holocaust (see recent BBC broadcast “Bengal Famine” involving me, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, medical historian Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya and other scholars: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot... ).

All decent people around the world should adopt the core moral messages from major genocides – e.g. of MANY genocides (associated avoidable deaths in parentheses), the Namibian Genocide (0.1 million), Armenian Genocide (1.5 million), the Indian Holocaust (1.8 billion), the Ukrainian Holocaust (7 million), the WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million), the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million), the WW2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma dead), the Chinese dead from Japanese invasion (35 million), the Palestinian Genocide (0.3 million), the Cambodian Genocide (1 million), the East Timorese Genocide (0.2 million), the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide (1 million), the Iraqi Genocide (4 million, 1990-2008; 2 million 2003-2008), the Afghan Genocide (10.6 million, 1979-2008; 4-6 million 2001-2008) ...

The core moral messages from such genocides are “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone” and “BEAR WITNESS” i.e. they should INFORM OTHERS about ALL such atrocities and through Sanctions and Boycotts have NO avoidable business dealings with people, institutions, corporations or countries involved in continuing holocaust commission and holocaust denial (currently the UK, the US, NATO, racist White Australia, and the US Alliance in general, including Apartheid Israel and Turkey).

Forum posts

  • The real reason for this "apology" is hidden ! As if an apology could be applied after a major crime committed as a terrible genocide for wiping out 95% of Armenian Homeland, Population, Culture and Cultural Environment, imposing total exile, total military might against civilian population and christian minorities and Assyrian and Greeks and numerous other minority nationals forced to give up language, culture, national identity and religion, homeland etc and become a slave of Turkish Capitalist Muslim Market (a pro-islamic odd type secular semi- capitalist semi-pro-imperialist system !) I think this apology is hiding other crimes in the making ; why they forget to mention the kurdish (big tribal conventions respected to the letter ! ) and active military aid given to Turkish army aided by their German Military Advisors ? Why not mentioning and or even acknowledging for the Armenian desires and demands formulated in President Woodrow Wilson’s committee’s draft for the partial restitution for the Armenian and Assyrian military allies’ help for the successful breaking-up of the Ottoman empire (not forgetting the 700 thousand strong Indian and Sik’s Colonial army brought to the Mesopotamia not counting the Lawrence of Arabia( Arab triabal militia ) Australian and Egyptian or African batalions or General Picot’s French Army occupying Syria, Lebanon and Cilicia ( Armenian and other Christian nationalities’ homland on Meditaranian coast and not forgetting the Tsarist Army beside which most Armenian militia and regular forces together with Assyrian Forces led by Aga Petros from Ourmia (Persia under Tsarist governornance ) were fighting the Ottoman countless confederated armies. Indeed this "appolgy" even forgets not only the Versaille Treaty, The Sevre Treaty or promices and betrayals made towards the Persian-Iraqi Kurds, to Assyrians or complete abandon and betrayal of Armenians even greately sacrificed and diminished by The Barbarian First Imperialist Genocide of the 20th century’s World War and depopulating and ethnique cleansing of 90% of Anatolian & Cilician Armenia, by Churchil’s machiavelian oil - financial deplomacy ; but it even forgets to mention the logical continuation of this genocide against the Kurdish nationals and current genocides in Iraq under Nato and Nato’s bigest military ally of The M.E. : Turkey !
    I happen to scan over www.chycho.com and I saw a revealed & planned repartition of The M.East, and I was indeed surprized to see in this map that A - most all countries are changed except Armenia and B- A big Kurdistan carved out of Iraq, Iran and most of Armenian ethnique-cleansed territories including Khars, Van and Ardahan’s oldest armenians lands whose population defeated the joint Turkish-Kurdish over 150 000 strong armies and prerently live by these historic armenian homeland in neighbouring Armenia ! Neoimperialism indeed prepares for permanent war for the future in The M.E. !

    • correction ! .... the real reasons for this group’s apology are not clear, and firstly as if apology could be brought forward after committing or participating in a most barbarian genocide ?!?!?! Sic ! ! !

  • How about your couragous attack on a dead man? Very brave to use revisonist history to go after Churchill. To lay all the dead of WW1 on his doorstep. As well as Indian and Pakistani dead, very couragous to attack one man, the whole British Empire is innocent it was all just this one man alone responsible.

    Ethnic and religous differences, tribal differences yet it was all Churchill.
    Famines pestilance and just plain ignorance which is still in abundance.
    I remember reading in the 1960’s of grain shipments sent to India off loaded with hooks causing 50% wastage most certainly that was Churchill’s doing as well. Was it Churchill who devised India’s caste system?

    Churchill was far from perfect and were he alive to defend himself he would most certainly agree. He was a man of his time, he thought as a man of his time and acted accordingly. Washington & Jefferson kept slaves and held pow’s in less than humane conditions does that diminish what they accomplished? How about Jesus? He could have healed all the lepers instead of just one or two, that was cold hearted of him wasn’t it?

    I use Jesus as an example because you can dig through the ashes of any fire looking for an ember of blame. A critic is the easiest job in the whole world, just stand back and wait for others to fail so that the critic can step forward to tell them how they should have done the first time without any suggestions for next time.

    A critic knows fifity ways to make love to a woman but can’t get a date!

  • Those who take the Armenian “allegations” of genocide at face value seem to also ignore the following facts concerning international law:

    1- Genocide is a legal, technical term precisely defined by the U.N. 1948 convention (Like all proper laws, it is not retroactive to 1915.) [13]

    2- Genocide verdict can only be given by a "competent court" after "due process" where both sides are properly represented and evidence mutually cross examined. [14]

    3- For a genocide verdict, the accusers must prove “intent” and “motive” at a competent court and by allowing due process to run its natural course. This was not, perhaps cannot ever be, done by the Armenians, whose evidence mostly fall into five major categories: hearsay, mis-representations, exaggerations, forgeries, and “other”. [15]

    4- Such a "competent court" was never convened in the case of Turkish-Armenian conflict and a genocide verdict does not exist (save a Kangaroo court in occupied Istanbul in 1920 where partisanship, vendettas, and revenge motives left no room for due process.) [8]

    5- Genocide claim is political, not historical or factual. It reflects bias against Turks. Therefore, the term genocide must be used with the qualifier "alleged", for scholarly objectivity and truth. [1-15]

    6- Recognizing Armenian claim as genocide will deeply insult Turkish-Americans as well as Turkish-Europeans, and Turks around the globe. Such a conduct would negatively influence the excellent relations currently enjoyed between the U.S. and Turkey, if not the West and Turkey. It will, no doubt, please Armenian lobbies in the U.S. Europe and Turkey but disappoint, insult, and outrage Turkey, one of America’s closest allies since the Korean War of 1950-53. Turks stood shoulder to shoulder with Americans in Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and more. Armenian lobbies will have been allowed to poison the U.S.-Turkey relations. American gratitude and thanks will appear to come in the form of the worst insult that can be dished out to an entire nation.

    7- History is not a matter of "conviction, consensus, political resolutions, propaganda, or public relations." History is a matter of research, peer review, thoughtful debate, and honest scholarship. Even historians, by definition, cannot decide on a genocide verdict, which is reserved only for a "competent tribunal" with its legal expertise and due process.

    8- What we witness today, therefore, amounts to lynching [14] of the Turks by Armenians and their supporters to satisfy the age old Armenian hate, bias, and bigotry. American values like fairness, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, objectivity, balance, honesty, and freedom of speech are stumped under the fanatic Armenian feet. Unprovoked , unjustified, and unfair defamation of Turkey, one of America’s closest allies in the troubled Middle East, the Balkans, and the Caucasus, in order to appease some nagging Armenian activists runs counter to American interests.

    9- Hate-based, divisive, polarizing, and historically biased proclamations, such as Schiff’s HR 106, have never been an American way to do business. Why start now?

    10- Those who claim genocide verdict [14] today, based on the much discredited Armenian evidence, are actually engaging in "conviction and execution without due process", which is the dictionary definition of “lynch mobs”.

    Allegations of Armenian genocide is racist and dishonest history.

    • Close friends or allies don’t let each other conduct mass murder, commit Genocide, and forgive one another. It is a matter of simple choice to stand right next to the perpetrators and support their shameful cover-up or simply accept the truth and come into terms with the sad historical reality. The choice is yours; however, always remember that nobody can escape the burden of guilt. Perhaps, you will devote some time for soul-searching and soon will join the thousands of brave Turkish citizens and scholars that individually and collectively admit and condemn the atrocities committed by their forefathers. They are even getting ready to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Thousands more of the concerned and honest global citizens are joining this same important cause since they are troubled by the continuous sense of self-deception and oppressive discomfort in hiding the truth. A fair acknowledgment of the Armenian and any other past or present Genocides is a crucial human responsibility and a moral obligation to preserve and promote global peace and justice.

    • please there be honest.people here in our country we have many ethnic groups.there is no specific evidece that our anchestors did genocide. now we say armanian to prove that they were the guilty during the 1915 we are ready for this we can prove as a nation but there is a misunderstandin in the eye of the world.it is that no muslim no türk wants or does a genocide it is everytime our rigth to defend our country...during the ottoman state armanian lived in peace. nobody can deny this we are as real türks ready to prove this everytime..as ı said befaore please fırstly people should look who has apologized from the armanian they are not real türks in fact there are many missioners in our country who wants no peace in our country...