Kurdistan / Kurdish recognitions- the Christian genocide in 1915

The genocide in north Kurdistan, Urfa.

• Recognition 1

Kurdish Parliament In Exile Recognizes Genocide

BRUSSELS-The Kurdish Parliament in Exile, passed a resolution recognizing and marking the Armenian Genocide Thursday. Below is the entire text of that resolution, which is being reprinted in its entirety and without any editorial posturing. To The Public Opinion

In Kurdistan, together with the Kurdish people, live Assyrian-Syrians as well as Armenians.

Invasion, occupation and division of Kurdistan, has not only affected the Kurds but also the Assyrian-Syrians as well as the Armenian peoples. Imposed colonialist policies have set these people against the Kurdish people and against each other, have created clashes and forced deportations and exiles. In our country, by setting the peoples against each other, the bloodiest imposed period of colonialist policies is 1915 and the few years following that.

On April 24, 1915, the decision of mass genocide and annihilation of the Assyrian-Syrian and the Armenian peoples was taken by the Ottoman Empire.

The blueprints of and the logistics for this genocide being prepared ahead of time, they employed Hamidiye Alaylari from Kurdish tribes (Similar to the present day Village Guards system who kill our people) to commit history’s, until then unknown, Genocide. In this Genocide, millions of Armenians and Assyrian-Syrians were killed, and millions others were deported from their homes and land and scattered to the four corners of the world.

The Turkish State which practices policies of setting peoples and people of diverse opinions against each other, still pursues the same repulsive policies at the end of the 20th century. Similar to setting-up Alevis and Sunnis against each other, they set-up the Kurdish people against each other through their creation, the Village Guards, which consist of Kurdish Jahshs. Separately, through their diverse assaults to annihilate the Kurdish people, they are registering new pages in the annals of genocides.

The Turkish State regime, from history to our days, has worked against the peoples, as if a guilty party, and with her committed genocides has changed the demographics of Anatolia causing the demise of many cultures-civilizations. The same policies are being applied in Kurdistan today. I call upon the world public opinion to become aware of this Turkish State policies and vehemently oppose it.

Today is the 82nd anniversary of the genocide committed against the Assyrian-Syrian and Armenian peoples. Sharing the agony caused by this process, I find the Ottoman State and their collaborators the Hamidiye Alaylari, formed by some Kurdish tribes, responsible for this crime before history and I condemn them with abhorrence. Zubeyir Aydar Chairman of the Executive Committee

Source: Asbarez On-Line 97/4/29

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• Recognition 2
  

PKK Chairman's letter to Kocharian

Abdullah Ocalan President Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)

10 April 1998

The President-elect of Armenia Robert Kocharian

Dear Mr President

I am writing to congratulate you on your election as President of Armenia and to wish you every success in forming your new government. I want particularly to wish you well in implementing democratic reforms and a political solution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

I also welcome and endorse the passage of a resolution in the Belgian Senate calling on the Turkish government in Ankara to recognise the reality of the Armenian holocaust perpetrated by the last Ottoman regime in 1915-19.

This resolution of 26 March, I believe, can not be treated as a transient episode but is of paramount significance in the protracted campaign to end the political amnesia about 1915, deliberately contrived by Turkish and foreign governments in the past in order to perpetrate the carve-up of Asias Minor and the Mid-East by the imperial powers at the Lausanne Conference of 1923.

The massacres during the First World War which shocked the civilised world then became a precedent for an even more appalling and destructive demonstration of genocide of the Jewish people by the German Nazis in the Second World War. Let us recall Hitler’s response to a critic of the "final solution" of the Jewish problem: "Who complained about the Armenians?"

Now, when the spectre of ethnic cleansing is once again stalking the Balkans the courageous stand of the Belgian Senate, we feel, must concentrate the minds of Turks, Armenians, Greeks and Kurds alike the necessity for a wide- ranging discussion and fresh analysis of the causes of the 1915 events as a precondition for a genuine reconciliation of ethnic groups and nations and the settling of territorial disputes through negotiation. Such a process, we are firmly convinced, will help Turkish-Armenian and Greek relations.

Our movement will continue to support all efforts to set in train a genuine dialogue between all contending parties with the self-evident proviso that the Kurdish claim to self- determination and freedom will not be prejudiced - as it was in Lausanne.

We urge the new governments of Armenia and Turkey to seize the historic opportunity.

We look forward to future co-operation with your government and the Armenian people and wish you all the success needed to move the peace process forward.

In the name of peace, freedom and reconciliation, we remain

Yours respectfully,

Abdullah Ocalan

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Battalion of Russian soldiers massed at the Russian religious mission in the Caucasus foothills (which is located in the Ottoman Empire) to await a Kurd attack." The detail: "The native Christian converts of the mission is ensemble to help them

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• Recognition 3
  

Kurdish newspaper apologizes to Armenian people

13.05.2005 14:31

YEREVAN (YERKIR) - On its website, the Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem, on behalf of the Kurdish people has offered its apologies to the Armenian people for the years of silence and complicity in the Armenian Genocide, Armenpress reported, citing Marmara, an Armenian-language newspaper published in Istanbul, Turkey.

The paper has described the great suffering of the Armenian people in stunning words, Marmara wrote. It has also apologized for its reluctance to widely discuss the issue.

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• Recognition 4

Recognition by the People's Congress of Kurdistan
(Kongra-Gel) of Caucasus

Armenian News Network / Groong
September 13, 2004
By Onnik Krikorian

Heydar Ali is the Caucasus Representative of the People's Congress
of Kurdistan (Kongra-Gel). This interview was conducted at
the office of the Kurdistan Committee in Yerevan on 24 August 2004

OK: Isn't the problem that the term "Kurd" can also be considered a political statement?

HA: In what sense?

OK: To say that you're a Kurd can be considered a political
statement and especially in a country such as Armenia which borders
Turkey. At the same time, because of the variety of religions and
dialects that divide the Kurdish nation, the term "Kurd" also
represents an attempt to break down those divisions in a nation that
is otherwise estimated at anywhere between 20-45 million people.

HA: In that sense, Armenia's position is more favorable towards
the Kurds because 1.5 million Armenians were killed during the
Genocide. However, to deny the Kurdish identity in Armenia is a
violation of international human rights obligations but yes, you are
right. It is well known that throughout history, Kurdistan and the
Kurds have been divided and that this is a special policy conducted by
very powerful countries in the world to weaken us. The division
between Kurds and Yezidi is another manifestation of this.

Kurdish Militia in January 24 - 1915

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• Recognition 5 (popular cultural recognition)
  

^{Özz Nûjen, a Swedish-Kurdish comedian speaks about the problems of Turkey in swedish about Hrant Dink, the Kurds, Orhan Pamuk and the Armenian genocide. He has several times mentioned the turkish denial of the genocide and the occupied Kurdistan in national swedish public service television.}

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• Recognition 6

Parliament of Kurdistan in Exile - 1995

129a Avenue Louise 1050
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +322-539-3033
Fax: +322-539-3887

Press Release #1

April 23, 1995

We Stand For The Brotherhood Of The Peoples Of The World In addition to the Kurds, there are Armenians and Assyrians living in Kurdistan. The invasion and occupation of their lands have adversely affected all three constituent peoples. The implementation of divide and rule policies have resulted in internal feuding. The natives of millenniums have fought one another and forced each other to migrate.

A most telling example of this policy was put into action in 1915. For a few years, we were provoked to kill one another in order to benefit our self-appointed leaders.

On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman administrators began a policy of annihilating the Armenians and the Assyrians. This was a plan long in the making, meticulously carried out with the aid of some tribal Kurds who were organized into an auxiliary force, the 'Hamidiye Alaylari' or Hamidiye Brigades, of the Istanbul government. Today, a similar force has been established, the 'Koy Koruculari' or village guards. In that singular act of brutality at the turn of the century, millions of Armenians, Assyrians, and Kurds were murdered and many more were forced to embrace the coldness of diaspora.

The policy of divide and rule has been inherited by the new Turkish government in Ankara. The same hideous crimes are now inflicted on the Kurds. At times, the Kurdish religious communities are provoked into fighting one another, as the Alevis and Sunnis do from time to time. A more sinister plan is the empowerment of an auxiliary force of mercenary Kurds to fight against their fellow Kurds who are on the side of freedom and liberty. New chapters of blood and pain, suffering and migration are written daily in the history of Turkey.

A cursory look at the history of the Ottomans reveals more about the nature of the Turkish state's practices. In Asia Minor, historians tell us, there were once vibrant societies, different languages, and various cultures. Today, there are no vestiges left of these communities. A similar policy is now in the works for Kurdistan: Some Kurds are killed, many are legally and forcibly made to become Turks, and more are forced to flee in an attempt to end the way of life which is known as Kurdistan.

As the Chair of the Executive Council of the Parliament of Kurdistan in Exile, a representative body of the Kurds in diaspora, I am urging the world public opinion not to let history repeat itself and not to remain silent to the annihilation of the Kurds.

Tomorrow is the 80th anniversary of the massacres of the Armenians and the Assyrians. Let history note that we at the Parliament of Kurdistan in Exile share the pain of the survivors and their relations. We unequivocally denounce the act and condemn the perpetrators of this inhumanity, the Ottomans and their collaborators of the Kurdish auxiliary forces. We urge you all to do the same.

Zubeyir Aydar,
Chair of the Executive Council

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• Recognition 7
  

Gulan Avci - municipal council, Stockholm and former Kurdish youth association chairman in Sweden.

11 oktober 2007

Turkiet, erkänn folkmordet och lös kurdfrågan (Turkey, admit the genocide and solve the Kurdish question)

I går antog USA:s utrikesutskott en resolution om att erkänna folkmordet på armenierna utfört av den turkiska armén under första världskriget.

Resolutionen är både viktig och välkommen. Viktig därför att det själsligt ger det armeniska folket upprättelse och välkommen därför att det kan tvinga Turkiet att ta demokratiprocessen EU kräver av dem på allvar om de ska bli medlemmar i unionen i framtiden.

Både presidenten och premiärministern har fördömt beslutet i hårda ordalag och turkiska medier har piskat upp krigsstämningar på många håll i landet idag.

Massdemonstrationer har arrangerats och ikväll kunde vi på 4-nyheterna se hur demonstranter uttryckte besvikelse mot beslutet eftersom att ”det aldrig inträffat något folkmord i Turkiet”

Det finns dock en invändning till folkmordsdebatten. Jag tycker det är djupt beklagligt att inte andra kristna grupper, assyrierna, syrianerna och kaldéerna som också föll offer för folkmordet får upprättelse. De har fått kämpa i motvind och de har haft få vänner som drivit deras kamp för att uppmärksamma Seyfo (Svärdets år) (man använder ordet för att beteckna folkmordet).

Svenska regeringen har en viktig roll, de kan använda sitt inflytande i EU och FN för att driva frågan vidare. Men för att det ska ske är det nödvändigt att något händer först på hemmaplan, i riksdagen.

Turkiet har sedan republiken bildades 1923 ägnat sig åt att ändra historiebeskrivningen. Det är inte konstigt eftersom att militären alltid haft starkt inflytande över politiken. Militären bär det yttersta ansvaret för folkmordet. Tre militärkupper har ägt rum i landet och det senaste var på 80-talet.

Den turkiska regeringen har under lång tid hotat att invadera södra Kurdistan med förevändning att bekämpa PKK. Under valrörelsen i somras användes invasionshotet som ett av de starkaste propagandakorten för att lugna inhemska opinionen och militären. Det var ett sätt för AKP att visa sin styrkedemonstration gentemot militären och sända signalen till folket att de kunde skydda republikens suveränitet och folket mot yttre hot.

Valpropagandan gav bra utdelning, AKP fick uppemot femtio procent av rösterna, men nu är de pressade och måste leva upp till vallöftena. Gör inte regeringen något så kan militärledningen med stor sannolikhet utföra operationen själva och det vore förödande för regeringens auktoritet. Därför står krigstankarna uppradade vid gränsen och inväntar anfallstecken.

Landets förste president, Mustafa Ataturk var själv general och arkitekten bakom folkmordet. Men i västvärlden vill man hellre minnas honom som den store ledaren som symboliserade modernismen. Man vill komma ihåg honom som den som bildade en modern republik efter resterna av ottomanska imperiet och den som lyckades skilja religion och stat från varandra. Det finns de som har sådan förkärlek till Turkiet att de är beredda att sudda bort de mörka fläckarna i den turkiska historien.

Turkiet har alltid haft två ansikten, ett ljust och ett mörk. Det ljusa vänt mot Europa och det mörka inåtvänt som framförallt riktat förtrycket mot det kurdiska folket bland annat genom att frånta dem deras mänskliga rättigheter, massdeportera miljontals människor till turkiska storstäder i syfte att assimilera dem och skövla tusentals byar. Den antikurdiska politiken har varit systematisk och den enda frågan som enat partierna är just kurdfrågan.

Förhoppningsvis leder dagens beslut till att Turkiet förstår allvaret i det budskap man sänt dem, att de tar demokratifrågorna på allvar, erkänner folkmordet, ger kurderna deras rättigheter och låter demokratin på allvar sprida sig över hela samhället. Så länge Turkiet inte gör det borde Sverige verka för att stänga igen portarna för ett turkiskt medlemskap i EU.