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Patterns of twentieth century genocides: the Armenian, Jewish, and Rwandan cases

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 6; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1462352042000320583

1469-9494

Vahakn N. Dadrian,

Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Robert Melson, (1994) "Response to Professor Dadrian's Review," Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol 8, No 3 (Winter), p 416. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Secrets of the Bosphorus (London: Hutchinson, 1918), p 202. It is significant that, in the Arnerican edition of this book, the name of Bedri, the chief of police in the Ottoman capital, whose position and rank were comparable to that of minister of police, is deleted. Instead, he is described as "a responsible Turkish official." Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1918), p 307. Ibid, p 312. Ibid, p 328. In using the general term "deportation," which, in practice—more often than not—meant massacres, wartime Turkish foreign Minister Halil Mentese (in his postwar memoirs) stated that "there are very few Turks in Anatolia who were not involved in this business of deportation" (tehcir meselesi) of the Armenians. "The Memoirs of Halil Mentese: The Exile to Malta," Hayat Tarih Mecmuasi, Vol 9, No 2 (September 1973), p 22. In his report to the State Department in Washington, DC, Lewis Heck, the US High Commissioner in the Ottoman capital from November 1918 through April 1919, declared that the deportation and massacre of the Armenians "were heartily approved at the time by the vast majority of the Turkish population of the country." The January 9, 1919, report, U.S. National Archives, RG. 256. 867.4016/2. p 2. The same statement is repealed in the January 20, 1919, report, RG. 256. 867.00/59. p 3. For details on these drowning operations in and around the Black Sea Port city of Trabzon, see the special issue of Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Vol 22, No 1 (Summer 1994), which contains collected essays by this author. The drownings are discussed at pp 40–49. Morgenthau, Ambassador, No 2, pp 317, 318. The text of General Vehib's affidavit in original Ottoman script is deposited in the Archives of the Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate, Series H. 17, File nos. 171 and 182. Ibid, Series L. 13, File nos. 323–239. Following is another portion of the Armenian lawyer's affidavit (pp 5–6): II. THE BEHEADING OF 500 CHILDREN Only few days had passed from the burning of the 2,000 orphans, when Moustafa Sidki and his men tried to devise other means of torture. They took 500 children to a part of the desert near the German Wireless Telegraph Station. He had them tied two by two by their feet and afterwards had them placed in a line on the ground. Then Moustafa Sidki sat in a heavy cart which was driven on this line of lying children in such a way that the wheels crushed the necks of these unfortunate children. Their heartrending shrieks resounded in the whole vicinity. III. 2,000 ORPHANS DROWNED IN THE EUPHRATES The annihilation of these helpless orphans was giving Moustafa Sidki and his accomplices such profound joy that soon other means of torture were found. On October 24, 1916, 2,000 orphans were carried to the banks of the Euphrates hands and feet bound. Moustafa Sidki after having sitted himself at ease, ordered to throw the orphans into the water two by two and enjoyed thoroughly the sight of their drowning. IV. THE VICTIMS OF THE BRIDGE On August 10, 1916, a caravan set on its journey to Mossoul. While passing over the bridge on the Euphrates, Moustafa Sidki, who was waiting there, ordered to bring the prettiest girls under the bridge. There these poor girls served to the lusts of Moustafa Sidki and his accomplices and were after that thrown into the Euphrates. Ludwig Schraudenbach, Muharebe (War) (Berlin: Drei Masken Verlag, 1924), p 352. K. A. Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933–1939 (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1970), pp 215 and 225. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jews (Chicago, IL: Quadrangle, 1969), pp 230–232. Jerry Sawicki, Vor dem Polnischen Staatsanwalt (Berlin: Deutscher Militaerverlag, 1962), p 198, quoted in Richard Breitman, "Additional Remarks," to Yehoshua Bu¨chler's "Document: A Preparatory Document for the Wannsee Conference," trans. Yehuda Bauer, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol 9, No 1 (Spring 1995), p 128. See also Yehuda Bauer's review of Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1992), in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol 6, No 3 (1991), pp 307–312. Morgenthau, Ambassador, No 2, p 309. See Vahakn N. Dadrian, "Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in German and Austrian Sources," Widening Circle of Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, ed. Israel Charny, Vol 3 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994), pp 104–107. Esat Uras, Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi (The Armenians and the Armenian Question), 2nd edn (Istanbul: Beige, 1976), p 612. In the case of Constantinople the facts are as follows: In the key indictment of the Turkish Military Tribunal, investigating the wartime massacres against the Armenians, there are repeat references to the sweeping compass of the deportation scheme, Takvimi Vekaˆyi, No 3540, pp 6, 7; on p 4 of the same document the procuror‐general makes an allusion to the design of the Ittihadists involving a Final Solution of the Armenian question and on p 8 the same idea is expressed through an attribution to Dr Nazim who uses a broader term, the "eastern question." In the ancillary indictment addressed against the responsible secretaries of the Young Turk Ittihad Party, the document makes a similar allusion about the empire‐wide range of the anti‐Armenian measures (Memaliki Osmaniyenin hemen her tarafinda). Takvimi Vekaˆyi, No 3571, p 130. The German documents found in tile state archives of Bonn are corrobative in this respect. In a major report on December 7, 1915, German Ambassador to Turkey Count Paul von Wolff‐Metternich informed his chancellor in Berlin that A. already 30,000 Armenians have been deported from Istanbul; B. 4,000 of them were dispatched only recently; C. plans are made to remove the remaining 80,000 Armenians from the Ottoman capital; D. the source of his information was the chief of the Istanbul police; E. these bits of information should be kept secret (die ich bitte geheim zu hatlen) (this part of the report is deleted from the massive documentary tome compiled by J. Lepsius, Deutschiand and Armenien [Potsdam: Tempelverlag, 1919], p 202). German Foreign Ministry Archives (Bonn) AA. Tu¨rkei 183/40. A36184. In the new filing system it is R14089. US Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau, in a report to Washington on August 11, 1915. stated, that Talaat "hints at drastic measures against all [Armenians] in Constantinople." US National Archives. R.G. 59. 867.4016/90. Toynbee's report is in Armenian Atrocities. The Murder of a Nation (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1915), p 77. In a subsequent report on October 4, 1915, the same ambassador declared: "The greatest wea1th of the Armenians is centered in Constantinople and I fear that it is but a question of time when the cupidity of some of the Turkish leaders and the desire of others to complete their nefarious scheme of practically destroying the Armenians in Turkey will be to treat Constantinople Armenians as they have the others. Delay is being secured but entire escape of Constantinople Armenians is doubtful if present general political conditions here remain unchanged" (Ibid, 867.4016/159). For a variety of reasons, that time was not to come as Turkey was busy completing the exterminatory work in the provinces and subsequent military setbacks ultimately compounded the problems her leaders faced in the task of completing the removal and annihilation of Istanbul Armenians. The documentary thrust of this study leaves very little doubt about what Melson has called "total domestic genocide." Robert Melson, Revolution and Genocide. On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp 2–4, 247–257. Even more authoritative in this regard is the characterization of Tarik Zafer Tunaya, the late dean of Turkish political scientists. When discussing the criminal proceedings against the Ittihadist leaders in his third volume on the Turkish political parties, he saw fit to translate the Ottoman word taktil into the modem Turkish equivalent of "genocide" ("soykirim"). The word taktil is the standard word the Turkish court‐martial regularly used to describe the thrust of the empire‐wide massacres. Tarik Z. Tunaya, Tu¨rkiyede Siyasal Partiler (Political Parties of Turkey), Vol 3, lttihad ve Terakki (Istanbul: Hu¨rriyet Vakfi, 1989), p 281. As to Smyrna (lzmir), as stated in the text, the Turkish governor‐general was personally and directly threatened by the German General Liman von Sanders, who was then commander‐in‐chief of the Ottoman Fifth Army and whose zone of command encompassed Smyrna and its environs. Upon the first act of deportation of 300 Armenians, signaling subsequent wholesale deportations, General von Sanders informed Rahmi, the governor‐general, that in the case of any further act of deporting the city's Armenian population he would use military units to arrest the teams of policemen assigned to deportation duties. Van Sanders' objection to "massive deportations" was not meant to protect the Armenians, he said, but to secure and protect military interest, which, he argued, might be jeopardized by the turmoil the deportation measures were likely to create; and he prevailed. There were no further deportations from Smyrna. German Foreign Ministry Archives, Tu¨rkei 183/45, A31127, No 703, in the filing system R14094; Austrian Foreign Ministry Archives, PA. 12/463, No 89/P.‐A; US National Archives, RG.59.867.00/802.5. General von Sanders was supported in his move by then German Foreign Affairs Minister Arthur Zimmermann. German Foreign Ministry Archives (Bonn) Turkey 183/45. A30700. No 1301, R14094. Hilberg, The Destruction, No 12, pp 98 and 258. Michael R. Marrus, "Coming to terms with Vichy," Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol 9, No 1 (Spring 1995), p 24. Hilberg, The Destruction, No 12, 2J, pp 278. 283, and 284. Ibid, p 62. Ibid, p 666. Louis Wirth, The Ghetto (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1928). Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The convergent aspects of the Armenian and Jewish cases of genocide: a reinterpretation of the concept of Holocaust," Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol 3, No 2 (Summer 1988), pp 151–154. Richard L. Rubenstein, The Age of Triage (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1983), p 130. George H. Hepworth, Through Armenia on Horseback (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1898), pp 146–147, 263, and 339–340. William M. Ramsay, Impressions of Turkey During Twelve Years' Wanderings (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1897), pp 156–157. Rubenstein, The Age of Triage, No 25, p 142. Ibid, p 144. Hilberg, The Destruction, No 12, Ch 5, pp 54–105. Memoirs of Halide Edib (New York: Century, 1926), p 386. U.S. National Archives, R.G. 59, 807.4016/148. Morgenthau, Ambassador, No 2, p 339. Hilberg, The Destruction, No 12, p 259. Ibid. The Goebbels Diaries, in L. Lochner ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1948), p 241. Hilberg, The Destruction, No 12, p 672. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "Genocide as a problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian case and its contemporary legal ramifications," Yale Journal of International Law, Vol 14, No 2 (Summer 1989), p 262. United Nations War Crimes Commission. History of the United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Development of the Laws of War (London: HMSO, 1948), pp 188–189; M. C. Bassiouni, Crimes Against Humanity in International Criminal Law (Dordrecht, Holland: Martinus Nijhoff, 1992), pp 168–169 and 184–187. Quoted in J. Willis, Prologue to Nuremberg: The Politics of Diplomacy of Punishing War Criminals of the First World War (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), p 173. E. L. Woodward, R. Butler, and A. Orde, eds., Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–39, 3rd series, Vol 7, 1939 (London: HMSO, 1954), Doc No 314, enclosure, pp 258–260; Kevork Bardakjian, Hitler and the Armenian Genocide (Cambridge, MA: Zoryan Institute, 1985), pp 3–24. Hilberg, The Destruction, No 12, p 671. Ibid, p 641. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The role of the special organization in the Armenian genocide during the First World War," in P Panayi, ed. Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia During the Two World Wars (Oxford: Berg, 1993), pp 50–82. See also Ahmed Refik (Alinay), Iki Komite‐lki Kital (Two Committees–Two Mass Murders), Ottoman script (Istanbul: Orhaniye Press, 1919), p 23; Falih Rifki Atay, Zeytindagi (Mt. Olive) (Istanbul: Ayyildiz, 1981), pp 35–36. See also the respective testimonies (at the Turkish court‐martial trials) of defendants Colonel Cevad Kianlikli, the wartime military commandant at the Ottoman capital, and Atif Kamc¸il, one of the chief directors of the Special Organization headquartered in Istanbul. See Takvimi Vekaˆyi, the official gazette of the Ottoman government whose supplements (ila`ve) published select portions of the proceedings of the military tribunal in the period from 1919 to 1921, No 3543, pp 26–30. Page 28 contains additional documents from Colonel Behic¸ Erkin, the deputy director in Department I of the Ministry of War in charge of the Bureau of Procurement (Ikmal Subesi). During the war, when the legal authorization of the release of the convicts was being sought by the Ministries of War and Justice, the same Colonel Behic¸ testified in the Ottoman Upper House (the Senate) about the necessity for and usefulness of the Special Organization relative to special task performances. Meclisi Ayan Zabit Ceridesi, 3d period, 3d sess.,15th sitting, December 12, 1916, Vol 1, p 187. As to the testimony before the Chamber of Deputies' Fifth Committee investigating the wartime misdeeds of cabinet ministers, wartime Justice Minister Saib Mollazade Ibrahim stated that the number of convicts released from the empire's prisons for such a mission "amounted to a significant sum total" (mu¨him bir yeku¨na balig). Harb Kabinelerinin Isticvabi (The Hearings on Wartime Cabinets) (Istanbul: Vakit Publications, 1933), p 537. Hilberg, The Destruction, No 12, Ch 7, "Mobile Killing Operations,' pp 177–256, Ch 9, "Killing Center Operations." pp 555–635. Ibid, pp 242–243. Leo Alexander, "War crimes and their motivation: the socio‐psychological structure of the SS and the criminalization of a society," Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, Vol 39 (September–October 1948), p 309. Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 1986), pp 224 and 388. Irving Louis Horowitz, Genocide, State Power and Mass Murder (New Brunswick, NJ: Transactjon. 1976); Taking Lives, Genocide and State Power, 3rd edn (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1980), p 11. Morgenthau, Ambassador, No 21, p 11. Peter Longerich, Hitler's Stellvertreter: Fu¨hrung der Partei and Kolltrolle des Staatsapparates durch den Stab Hess and die Partei Kanzlei Bormann (Munich: Saur, 1992). The participants were: Reinhardt Heydrich and Alfred Meyer, Drs Georg Leibbrant, Wihelm Stuckart, Roland Freisler, and Joseph Bu¨hler, and Martin Luther, Karl Scho¨ngarth, and Otto Lange; other security potentates, likewise present, were Erich Neumann, Gerhard Klopfer, Wilhelm Kritzinger, Ottoman Hoffman, and Heinrich Mu¨ller. Hilberg, The Destruction, No 12, p 264. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The secret Young‐Turk Ittihadist Conference and the decision for the World War I genocide of the Armenians," Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol 7, No 2 (Fall 1993), pp 173–201. Robert H. Jackson, The Nurnberg Case. Together with Other Documents (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1971), p 40. Special Organization Chieftain Major Yakub Cemil. Quoted by Secret Service Administrator Galip Vardar, Ittihad ve Terakki lc¸inde Do¨nenler (The Inside Story of Ittihad ve Terakki), N. Tansu, ed. (Istanbul: Inkilaˆp, 1960), pp 279–280. Christian P. Scherrer, Genocide and Crisis in Central Africa. Conflict Roots, Mass Violence, and Regional War (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishing, 2002), p 116. This view is contradicted by Rene´ Lemarchand, who singles out "the ethnic underpinnings" in the evolution of the Hutu–Tutsi conf1ict. "Disconnecting the threads: Rwanda and the Holocaust reconsidered," Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 4, No 4 (2002), p 503. Kathleen Berry, on the other hand, describes the two groups as representing "social or economic categories." "Rwanda and the United Nations: A case of active indifference," International Network on Holocaust and Genocide, Vol 14, No 2–3 (2002), p 10. According to Mark A Drumbl, the Hutu–Tutsi conflict had an "internecine" character as the Hutu and Tutsi, far from being distinct ethnic groups, had fostered an historically symbiotic relationship. "Sobriety in a post‐genocidal society: Good neighborliness among victims and aggressors in Rwanda?" Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 1, No 1 (1999), pp 28–29. Ibid. Lemarchand, "Disconnecting …," No 56, p 501. Rene` Lemarchand, "Rwanda: The rationality of genocide" in Roger Smith, ed. Genocide: Essays Toward Understanding, Early Warning, and Prevention, (Association of Genocide Scholars: College of William and Mary, 1999), pp18–19. Lemarchand, "Disconnecting …," No 56, p 503. Scherrer, Genocide, No 56, p 123. Melson, Revolution and Genocide, No 17, pp 2–4, 30, 66–69, 247–57. Scherrer maintains that this group "had far more decision power than the cabinet ministers." Scherrer, Genocide, No 56, p 107. Ibid, p 125. Frank Chalk, "Radio broadcasting in the incitement and interdiction of gross violations of human rights, including genocide, in Genocide," Genocide.Essays, No 50, p 187. Scherrer, Genocide, No 59, p 122. Ibid. Ibid, p 110. Alison Des Forges et al., Leave None to Tell the Story of Genocide in Rwanda (Human Rights Watch and International Federation of Human Rights: New York, 1999), p 87. Adam Jones, "Gender and genocide in Rwanda," Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 4, No l (2002), p 70. Ibid, pp 83, 87, 88. African Rights, Rwanda—Not So Innocents: Women as Killers (London: African Rights, 1995), p 27. Jones, "Gender and genocide," No 69, p 81. Ibid, p 81. Scherrer, Genocide, No 56, pp 111, 115. Jones, "Gender and genocide," No 69, p 69. Scherrer, Genocide, No 56, p 125. Ibid, p 111. Berry, "Rwanda and the United Nations," No 69, pp 66–67. Ibid, p 15. Jones, "Gender and genocide," No 56, pp 66–67. Lemarchand, "Disconnecting …," No 56, p 513. Des Forges, Leave None …, No 68, p 222.