Didn’t Turkey take lessons from its past mistakes? And Al-Nejashi?
Source: Globe News Net
October 11, 2021
Majority of the Armenians lived on the Eastern side of the Ottoman empire in Anatolia. The leadership of the declining Ottoman empire fell in the hands of Turkish nationalist movement of young soldiers which formed the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), led by “three pashas”. The CUP resolved to prevent any possibility of Armenians autonomy or independence in the empire’s eastern provinces. The CUP developed what they called “a definitive solution to the Armenian Problem”.
It in fact was total annihilation of the Armenian population in a well-planned, decreed, and well-executed manner.
- First Armenian civil servants were dismissed from their posts in late 1914 and early 1915.
- Then Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army were disarmed and transferred to labour battalions. Beginning in early 1915, the Armenian soldiers in labour battalions were systematically murdered by Ottoman troops, the first victims of what would become genocide. About the same time, irregular forces began to carry out mass killings in Armenian villages near the Russian border.
- On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested and later executed 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders from Constantinople (now Istanbul)). The purpose was to leave Armenians without a leader who can organize and lead the popular resistance.. This date is marked as the date on which the Ottoman government embarked upon a systematic extermination of ethnic Armenians.
- What followed is a decision by the CUP led Ottoman government to forcibly remove the entire Armenian Civilian population.
- Most Armenian men, including boys above the age of twelve, were separated from the rest of the deportees during the first few days, and executed. Many of them were pushed by paramilitary units off the cliffs into valleys from which the only escape was into the lake. Many others were trapped in valleys of tributaries of the Tigris, Euphrates, or Murat River. Others were drowned by being tied together back-to-back before being thrown into the Tigris, Euphrates, Murat Rivers.
Estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenian women, children, and elderly people were sent on death marches leading to the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916. Deportation amounted were organized in manner to ensure no one survives. The deportees were subjected to hard marches through mountainous terrain. Those who could not keep up were left to die or shot. Some were forced to walk as far as 1,000 kilometres in the summer heat. Most Armenians perished along the roads. Driven forward by paramilitary escorts, the deportees were subjected to robbery, rape, and massacre. In the Syrian Desert, they were dispersed into a series of concentration camps. The Armenians were denied food and water during and after their forced march to the Syrian desert; many died of starvation, exhaustion, or disease, especially dysentery, typhus, and pneumonia. Aid organizations were officially barred from providing food to the deportees. Between 600,000 and 1,000,000 Armenians are thought to have perished on the death marches. Deportation was only carried out where no active rebellion existed; Armenians who lived in the war zone were instead rounded up and massacred.
More than 200,000 Armenians who survived the death marches were executed between March and October 1916; only about 200,000 deportees were left by the end of 1916.
The government had decreed that any Muslim who harboured an Armenian against the will of the authorities would be executed so that no Armenian sought a refuge in their Turkish neighbours.
The Armenian population of the Ottoman state was reported at about two million in 1915. An estimated 1-1.5 million had perished by 1918, while hundreds of thousands had become homeless and stateless refugees. By 1923 virtually the entire Armenian population of Anatolian Turkey had disappeared. Ottoman records show the government aimed to reduce the population of Armenians to no more than 5- 10 % in any part of the empire. According to some studies, by the end of the war, more than 90 % of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were exterminated. All traces of Armenian existence, including churches, monasteries, libraries, archaeological sites, animal and place names, were erased.
The deserted homes and property of the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia were confiscated by the state and given to Muslim Turks immediately. The expropriation was part of a drive to build a statist “national economy” controlled by Muslim Turks.
100,000 to 200,000 surviving Armenian women and children were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. These surviving women and children were often forced to give up their Armenian identities at all, and their numbers should not exceed the 5-10 % threshold.
The land mostly in Anatolia that they lived in was divided between Russia and Turkey.
Today, fewer than 60,000 ethnic Armenians remain in Turkey, mainly in Istanbul, and still are targets of sporadic hate crimes, such as vandalism of churches. The parallels between how the genocide on Armenians and on Tigrayans were executed are immense.
For more than 8 months, Ethiopian and Eritrean armies, Amhara forces (Amhara Special forces, Amhara militias, Amhara Fano-an armed youth squad) committed a well-planned, deliberate, well-executed act of genocide against ethnic Tigray.
In a similar fashion with the genocide on Armenians, tens of thousands of Tigrayan members of Ethiopian Defense forces were disarmed and detained arbitrarily in various unknown concentration camps within days of the beginning of the genocide. Many among them are feared to have been executed. Likewise, Tigrayans throughout Ethiopia are profiled and indiscriminately arrested for months; Tigrayan civil servants in Federal government bureaus have been fired from their jobs; Tigrayan businesses have been shut. Tigrayans in Ethiopia are enduring all kinds of humiliation and harassment for who they are. On April 29th, the Associated Press released a report detailing this ethnic profiling, arbitrary detention, and purging of Tigrayans. Recent statements by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also detailed the arbitrary detention and forced disappearances of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa. So far, more than 165 mass massacre sites are compiled by a team at the University of Ghent in Belgium which were carried out between November and March. There are handful additional massacres since then. 70,000-150,000 innocent Tigrayans are estimated to have been exterminated in these massacres.
To mention few among the notable massacres:
- The Mai-Kadra massacre which according to a report by Amnesty International, took more than 600 lives
- Axum massacre tallying more than 800 civilian deaths, according to AP’s Feb 18 report of witness accounts
- Dengelet Massacre (a March 22nd report by the CNN put the figure at more than 100 casualties; Europe External Programme with Africa put the figure at 150; my witnesses put the figure to be 165)
- Mahbere-Dego (a leaked graphic Video and witness accounts collected by CNN and BBC Africa suggest 39-73 young men to have been killed between Jan 15 and 16; my witnesses estimated 193 civilians to have been killed, including on the subsequent days)
- Abi Adi- an April 7th report by The Telegraph shows that 182 civilians were killed on February 10 alone]
- Bora (more than 160 civilian deaths occurred, according to a March 19th witnesses report by Los Angeles Times)
- The Zelambessa massacre, killing 56-72 civilians, according to reports by Tigray Television.
In addition, there are multiple reports of massacres in Sheraro, Humera Dansha, Maykinetal, Selekleka, Irob, Debre-Abay, Idaga-hamus, Adwa, Shire, Humera, Idaga-Arbi, Adigrat, Hawzen, Edaga-Berhe, Miriena, Seglamen, Hagere-selam, Hitsats, Samre, Gijjet, Hiwane, Nebelet, Wukro,Workamba, Killele, Azeba e.t.c. These are just a few of the more than 165 massacre sites where Eritrean, Ethiopian, and Amhara armies systematically slaughtered civilians of all age groups (as young as 2 years of age, up to 93 years old).
Thousands of women and underage girls (as young as 6 years old) in Tigray have been gang-raped, in an intentional use of rape as a weapon of war; in some cases, the rapists burn the victims’ genitalia and uterus with hot iron rods, and insert foreign objects to make them infertile. This was usually done in public, in front of family members.
To induce mass starvation and destitution of Tigray, Ethiopian and allied forces burnt crops, seeds, hay, cut trees, destroyed agricultural tools, killed livestock, destroyed small dams and irrigation canals in a systematic campaign of destroying the agricultural sector. The World Peace Foundation produced a 58-page comprehensive report regarding this campaign of starving Tigray.
According to reports by UN agencies and USAID, more than 2.3 people in Tigray are internally displaced; 5.2 million people in urgent need of humanitarian aid; 900,000 among them are in famine conditions. Hundreds have already died of hunger, so far. Like the Turks, the Ethiopian government and allies, are doing everything they can to block humanitarian aid from reaching the people that they have systematically starved, with the intent of decimating the entire Tigrayan population.
Like in the Armenian Genocide, Ethiopia’s government and allies have used rape, sexual slavery, starvation, and the destruction of civilian livelihood as a weapon of war. They also destroyed health facilities, clean water infrastructure, and water pumps so greater numbers of Tigrayans will die of water-borne illnesses and other communicable, non-communicable diseases, and injuries.
Ethiopia’s government and allies also destroyed schools, roads, a variety of civilian infrastructures, heritages [including AlNejashi Mosque, Debredamo monastery, Dengolat St Mary monastery e.t.c], private houses, factories, entire villages for the sake of destroying Tigray, and erasing Tigray’s history and identity.
Ethiopian government and allies have committed ethnic cleansing and Genocide in Western Tigray. USA’s Secretary Secretary of State have confirmed that. Estimated 700,000 Tigrayans from estimated 1 million have been forcibly evicted from their lands and their homes empty-handed, and are now sheltered in various shelter centres. Tens of thousands among them are killed, tens of thousands more kept in concentration camps to die. There is new wave of killing of the remaining Tigrayans there; their bodies are found floating inside Tekeze river. The Amhara have brought hundreds of thousands of their people from Amhara and let them take the houses and lands of Tigrayans, making Western Tigray “homogeneously Amhara” land. Thousands of women and under 7 children are forced to take an Amhara identity in order to remain in their homes; the women must be willing to be a concubine to an Amhara militia, though. Tigrayan traces have been erased. The Amhara Regional Government has even started illegally (yet officially) leasing farmlands of Tigrayans to Amhara investors.
Tigray is now in a complete siege, with a complete road blockade, interruption of electricity, telecommunication, banking services. Humanitarian aid is blocked; less than 5 % of the humanitarian aid that Tigray needed is allowed to pass. Humanitarian agencies are stopping their activities because they have nothing to provide, and have neither fuel nor cash.
Ethiopia’s government and allies are employing the same methods that Turkey used 106 years ago, and they are doing it in a more cruel, savage manner.
Turkey didn’t actually acknowledge the genocide it committed on Armenians then, but the writings are on the wall, and there is international consensus that Turkey actually committed it.
Despite the denial, any sensible person his right mind would expect Turkey to be more prudent, more responsible in matters that could have a genocide potential. No one would expect Turkey to indulge itself in a new genocide this time in Africa.
By supplying TB2 combat drones to Ethiopia for its campaign of genocide on Tigray, Turkey’s government is telling humanity that it has no remorse of what Turkey did 106 years ago on Armenians, or what Turkey did over the recent decades on Kurds; and that Turkey has got no respect to humanity and international norms.
There is also another dimension to Turkey’s irresponsible partnership-in-crime; Al-Nejashi Mosque, one if the oldest mosque in the world was bombed and looted by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces during the first weeks of war in November. On 18 December, a communique by the Belgium-based Europe External Programme with Africa reported that the mosque “was first bombed and later looted by Ethiopian and Eritrean troops”.
Ahmed Siraj, a representative of the regional International Association of Muslims in Tigray, told Middle East Eye “We have determined from our sources that a number of innocent people, including a father of four children, were killed by Eritrean soldiers simply for protesting against the mosque’s pillaging on 26 November….a number of artefacts were believed to have been stolen from the mosque, including religious manuscripts, books and letters dating as far back as the seventh century”
According to Islam scripts, Twelve men and four women took heed of the prophet’s advice and made the pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Aksum. Among them, Ruqayyah bint Muhammad, daughter of the prophet himself. That makes Al-Nejashi the first site religious pilgrimage in the muslim world. A Turkish aid agency launched a project in 2015 to renovate the mosque, saying it wanted to “preserve the heritage” of the monument and wanted it to become a major destination for “religious tourism”.
By supplying TB2 drones to Ethiopia, Turkey’s president, Mr. Erdogan, who claims to be “guardian of Islam” is becoming a party in the genocide and in the destruction of Islam’s holy site.
In conclusion:
Turkey should reverse it’s decision to supply Ethiopia’s government, which stands accused of committing genocide on its own people; whose forces have deliberately destroyed one of the holiest places in the Islam world, with TB2 drones. Turkey has among other things moral, historical, religious, and legal responsibilities not to indulge itself in to this crisis.
Dr. Goitom A. is A Medical Doctor, A university Professor, Civil Society leader, and an Activist
