Historian Unearths Evidence that Istanbul Directed Armenian Genocide

New documents suggest the Armenian genocide was both sanctioned and assisted by leaders of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul

By Brooks Hays

Armenian civilians, escorted by armed Ottoman soldiers, are marched to a nearby prison.

Photo by Wikimedia Commons

(UPI) -- Between 1914 and 1923, during and after World War I, hundreds of thousands of Armenians living in Turkey were systematically rounded up and murdered. Thousands more were forced to flee their homes. Some estimates put the death toll at more than 1.5 million.

Now, researchers say newly discovered documents suggest the Armenian genocide was both sanctioned and assisted by leaders of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul.

The fact that the Armenian genocide happened is well-accepted within academic circles. However, the Turkish government has continued to deny the culpability of their predecessors.

"The Armenian diaspora is trying to instill hatred against Turkey through a worldwide campaign on genocide claims ahead of the centennial anniversary of 1915," Turkey's president, Recep Erdogan, said in 2015. "If we examine what our nation had to go through over the past 100 to 150 years, we would find far more suffering than what the Armenians went through."

Erdogan's sentiments aren't without the support of the vast majority of the Turkish population. As the New York Times reported in 2015, a poll conducted by the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, an Istanbul research organization, fewer than one in ten Turks believe the government should label the atrocities genocide and apologize.

"Turkish government officials continue to use the same argument, the argument that the Ottoman government never had the intent," Taner Akçam, an Armenian genocide expert and history professor at Clark University in Massachusetts, told UPI. "They accept that there were casualties and some massacres, but they claim the Ottoman government was not able to control the remote areas and that some Kurdish tribes or bandits or some other group, they committed these kinds of crimes."

What was missing, Akçam said, was a "smoking gun" linking the atrocities to the Ottoman government. That's exactly what Akçam found.

"This new evidence is a major blow against Turkish denialist arguments," Akçam said.

His discovery suggests the genocide was indeed carried out on periphery, not by rogue agents and bandits, but by provincial governors. These governors were in communication with and assisted by leaders in Istanbul.

"This shows the radicalization process started in the provinces," Akçam told UPI.

The evidence, a series of telegrams transcribed, decoded and signed by Turkish officials, was discovered among a slate of new documents released into the Ottoman archive, a collection of historical documents in Istanbul, organized by the government and made available to researchers.

The newly discovered letters feature the first unambiguous use of the terms "extermination" and "annihilation" by Ottoman officials, both among the provinces and in Istanbul. Analysis of the signatures confirmed several of the transcribed telegrams were authored by Bahaettin Şakir, head of the para-military Special Organization and one of the architects of the Armenian Genocide.

Though the plan to exterminate all of the Armenians living in Turkey began as a provincial idea, the new evidence suggests Istanbul was eventually convinced to back the genocidal approach.

In addition to the documents retrieved from the Ottoman archive in Istanbul, Akçam also discovered similar letters -- transcribed telegrams -- that were used as evidence in tribunals organized by the postwar Ottoman government.

"There were 63 different trials and more than 200 defendants," Akçam said. "The materials from these court procedures went missing. Government officials never made these court proceedings available to researchers."

Researchers only knew about these tribunals from reports written by daily newspapers in Istanbul. A few of the verdicts were also published by the Ottoman government. But some of the documents from these tribunals ended up in the private archive of a Catholic priest in Armenia.

Among the tribunal documents, Akçam found transcribed telegrams using the same coding system -- a series of Arabic letters and numerals to represent words and suffixes -- found among the letters unearthed from the Ottoman archive.

"I went to the Ottoman archive, I discovered that this four digit coding system was the same for both sets of telegrams," he said. "The authenticity cannot be disputed, this was the major discovery."

The transcribed telegrams provided further evidence of communication between those carrying out the genocide in the provinces and military and political officials in Istanbul, including messages that Akçam characterized as "killing orders."

As to why these revealing documents were publicly released by a government intent on denying its predecessors culpability, Akçam guesses officials simply didn't read them thoroughly. The documents in the archives were summarized by officials before being released, and the summaries of the newly discovered telegraphs mention nothing of the details relating the Armenian genocide.

Akçam said his discoveries, summarized in the Journal of Genocide Research, will further solidify the truth of the Armenian genocide. It's a truth he hopes will soon be accepted by the Turkish government.

According to Akçam, the genocide has implications for the political situation in modern Turkey.

"Turks and the Turkish government has the same problems today with Kurds as the Ottomans had with Armenians in the past," he said. "Armenians were making demands for legal and social equality. The Kurds are making similar demands today."

As a result, Akçam said, the Kurds have been labeled as a security threat and the Turkish government has attempted to suppress these democratic demands.

"Without acknowledging historical wrongdoings, Turkey cannot establish a democratic future," Akçam said.

According to the historian, reconciling with the record of the Armenian genocide is essential for improved relations between Turkey and its neighbors.

"Speaking regionally, if you continue this policy of denialism, this means you have the potential to repeat the same policy against your neighbors," Akçam said. "This is why many of Turkey's neighbors consider the Turkish government a security threat. Without reconciling history, peace will not be achievable in the region."

Child Dies After Mistaking Lethal Dose of Meth for Breakfast – Police

I should have some sympathy for this dad, but instead I think he should be charged with manslaughter. So many children suffer unbelievably, horrible things because their parent(s) treat them as less important than the drugs they are doing. This has to stop! There should be no lenience from the courts for these people and child services should have zero tolerance for parents with children who are doing drugs.

A file photo of crystal meth. / Reuters

An Indiana father has been arrested after toxicology reports showed his 8-year-old son died due to ingesting 180 times the lethal dose of methamphetamine thinking it was breakfast.

Jackson County police say Curtis Collman III mistook a stash of the drug found at his father’s home for food while he was staying at the Seymour property on June 21. The methamphetamine was discovered on a plate and eaten by the young boy who subsequently fell extremely ill, reported WIS TV.

The 8-year-old’s father, Curtis Collman II, has now been charged with possession of the illegal drug as well as negligence of a dependant. An autopsy released on Thursday revealed the child had 18,000 nanograms of meth in his system, reported the Seymour Tribune newspaper. The dosage is 180 times what is generally considered lethal.

Negligence is not enough. The man was complicit in his son's death and should be charged as such.

Curtis Collman II is alleged to have refused to call emergency services after the accident and he instead drove his son from Seymour to Crothersville town.

The boy’s grandmother has since paid tribute to the child who was described as being “full of life.”

“He enjoyed riding his bicycle,” Rita Cook told ABC affiliate WALB news. “He enjoyed riding his scooter, he loved to watch Spongebob. He was a Minecraft tutorial person. He could tell you anything about Minecraft. He just loved life.”

S. Africa Opposes US Push to Make UN Declaration on TB Friendlier to Big-Pharma

Big pharma's lobby, which is not the least interested in the health of anyone, works long and hard to corrupt the US government into affecting global policies that will enrich big pharma at the expense of everyone who is in need of pharmaceutical help. Any politician taking money from big pharma is complicit in the suffering and deaths of countless numbers of peoples.

A TB sufferer in Agartala, India. © Abhisek Saha/ZUMA Press / Global Look Press

The US pushed to delete a provision in a draft UN declaration on fighting tuberculosis, which encouraged poorer countries to make TB treatments more affordable while snubbing copyright holders, documents reviewed by RT confirm.

In September, the UN high-level Meeting on ending tuberculosis will meet in New York to pass a political declaration on fighting the disease. TB is the world's most deadly infection and kills over a million people each year, with an overwhelming majority of the deaths occurring in developing countries. 

The text of the declaration had been negotiated over the past few months and was understood to be settled, until South Africa made an eleventh-hour decision to break a so-called "silence procedure" last week, publishing the near-final draft in the hope of relaunching negotiations.

According to a Medic Without Borders (MSF) statement, South Africa, which is among the countries suffering most from TB, is unhappy that the American delegation pressured other negotiators to drop a provision, which encourages countries to use international trade rules that allow leeway in protecting intellectual property, if it is needed to address a public health crisis, like a TB epidemic. Such flexibility is allowed by the 1994 Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement, as explained in the Doha Declaration of 2001.

An earlier draft of the TB declaration provided by a source exclusively to RT contains such a clause, while the latest one published on South Africa's initiative does not. The old draft encouraged "the use to the full, of existing flexibilities under the TRIPS specifically geared to promoting access to and trade in medicines" and called on nations to "ensure that intellectual property rights provision in trade agreements do not undermine existing flexibilities."

The US has considerable sway in the fight against tuberculosis, being a top sponsor. During the debate over the draft declaration at the UN, the American representative argued that dropping the wording would have little practical effect on the effort to curb the disease, pointing out that "most existing treatment drugs for TB are off-patent and inexpensive, and that of the two newer drugs, one is donated and the other currently has limited use according to WHO guidelines," she said.

"It would seem to be a better use of global efforts to focus on improving systems, preventive measures and development of new tools, rather than be distracted, as we often are, into discussion of medicine access, intellectual property flexibilities or compulsory licensing," the representative argued.

The position was rejected by Els Torreele, executive director of MSF's Access Campaign, who called it part of an "aggressive push by several countries backed by big-pharma lobbies [which] would severely undercut needed guarantees to protect access to vital tools and medicines for people living with TB."

"This is not a new element. Those of us who have been advocating for affordable medicines globally for the past 20 years know that a number of countries are under very strong pressure of their pharmaceutical industry who are constantly asking for much more strong monopolies, longer monopolies, because this is much more profitable," explained MSF's Eis Torrelle in an interview with RT. She added that the US is one such country and they "are bullying other countries to accept this."

The conflict is one of several in which the US found itself alone, standing for corporate interests against other UN members. Earlier, the American delegation pressured others to strike out the wording supporting breastfeeding from a World Health Organization (WHO) declaration – a move that critics said only baby-formula producers benefited from – until Russia intervened.

Similar pressure campaigns by the US targeted a WHO attempt to limit the use of livestock antibiotics – important in industrial farming – and encourage taxation of sugary drinks to curb diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

Poland’s Holocaust-Revisionism Law Triggers Backlash from Israel

The "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate at the former Nazi German concentration camp Auschwitz, in Oswiecim, Poland,

January 27, 2018. © Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Israeli leaders are up in arms over pending legislation in Poland that would officially outlaw blaming Poles for the heinous Holocaust crimes committed on Polish soil during World War II.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the proposed law, passed by the lower house of the Polish parliament on Friday, “baseless.” The new legislation prescribes prison time for using phrases like “Polish death camps” to refer to the notorious mass concentration camps Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland during World War II.

“One cannot change history, and the Holocaust cannot be denied,” Netanyahu wrote on Facebook late on Saturday, adding that he had asked the Israeli embassy in Poland to “meet tonight with the Polish prime minister to relay my firm stance against this bill.”

The bill, which still needs approval from Poland’s Senate and president, is perceived by critics as an attempt by the country’s nationalist government to target anyone who seeks to contest its official stance on the conduct of Poles during the war, which places emphasis on heroism and sacrifice while rejecting the complicity of some in mass murder. Under the new legislation, anyone who publicly attributes blame for the crimes committed by the Nazis to Poles or the Polish state would be liable for penalties.

“Non-governmental organizations indicate that every other day the phrase ‘Polish death camps’ is used around the world,” Poland’s deputy justice minister Patryk Jaki said in a speech before the lower house on Friday. “In other words, German Nazi crimes are attributed to Poles. And so far the Polish state has not been able to effectively fight these types of insults to the Polish nation.”

Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial has issued a statement opposing the Polish legislation, saying it is “liable to blur the historical truths regarding the assistance the Germans received from the Polish population during the Holocaust.”

“There is no doubt that the term ‘Polish death camps’ is a historical misrepresentation,” the Yad Vashem memorial said. “However, restrictions on statements by scholars and others regarding the Polish people’s direct or indirect complicity with the crimes committed on their land during the Holocaust are a serious distortion.”

Former Finance Minister Yair Lapid, the head of Israel’s centrist Yesh Atid party, also lambasted the controversial bill on Twitter.

“I utterly condemn the new Polish law which tries to deny Polish complicity in the Holocaust. It was conceived in Germany but hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered without ever meeting a German soldier. There were Polish death camps and no law can ever change that,” Lapid wrote.

His comment added fuel to the fire, sparking the Polish Embassy in Israel to respond: “Your unsupportable claims show how badly Holocaust education is needed, even here in Israel.”

“My grandmother was murdered in Poland by Germans and Poles,” Lapid replied. “I don’t need Holocaust education from you. We live with the consequences every day in our collective memory. Your embassy should offer an immediate apology.”

To which the embassy retorted: “How does that relate to the fact that WW2 death camps were German Nazi, not Polish (our thread)? Shameless.”

Noting that 73 years had passed since the Auschwitz death camp on Polish soil was liberated, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said that respecting the tragic page of history is a must.

 “The Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the entire world must ensure that the Holocaust is recognized for its horrors and atrocities,” Rivlin said. “Also among the Polish people, there were those who aided the Nazis in their crimes. Every crime, every offense, must be condemned. They must be examined and revealed.”

For decades, Polish society tried to avoid discussing the killing of Jews by civilians, with atrocities usually blamed on the Nazis. The discussion was reinvigorated by the book “Neighbors,” published in 2000, by Polish-American historian Jan Tomasz Gross, which explored the murder of Jews by their Polish neighbors in the village of Jedwabne in 1941. Holocaust historians have gathered a large dossier of evidence of Polish villagers who murdered Jews fleeing the Nazis. According to one scholar at Yad Vashem, of the 160,000-250,000 Jews who had sought help from fellow Poles, only between 10 to 20% survived.

In 2011, Poland’s then-President Bronislaw Komorowski offered an apology during ceremonies marking 70 years since Polish villagers murdered hundreds of their Jewish neighbors in a World War II massacre.

Jedwabne, Poland