Assyrian Genocide

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Map showing the Armenian (in colours) and Christian (in shadings) population of the eastern Ottoman provinces in the year 1896. In the areas where the share of Christian population was higher than that of the Armenians, the non-Armenian Christian population largely consisted of Assyrians (except in regions inhabited by Ottoman Greeks). Assyrians lived mostly in the southern and southeastern parts of the region

Bodies of Christians who perished during the Assyrian Genocide

40 Christians dying a day say Assyrian refugees - The Syracuse Herald, 1915.

The Washington Post and other leading newspapers in Western countries reported on the Assyrian Genocide as it unfolded.

Because of the mass killings, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII was chosen as a Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East at only 11 years old.

An article from The New York Times, March 27, 1915.

The Assyrian Genocide (also known as Sayfo or Seyfo) was committed against the Assyrian/Syriac population of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War by the Young Turks.^[1] The Assyrian population of northern Mesopotamia (the Tur Abdin, Hakkari, Van, Siirt regions of present-day southeastern Turkey and the Urmia region of northwestern Iran) was forcibly relocated and massacred by Ottoman (Turkish) and Kurdish forces between 1914 and 1920 under the regime of the Young Turks.^[2] Scholars have placed the number of Assyrian victims at 500,000 to 750,000.^[3][4][5][6]

The Assyrian genocide took place in the same context and time-period as the Armenian and Greek genocides^[7]. But unlike these, no official national or international recognition of the Assyrian genocide has been made, and many accounts discuss the Assyrian genocide as a part of the larger events subsumed under the Armenian genocide.^[8]

Terminology

The Assyiran genocide is sometimes also referred to as Sayfo or Seyfo in English language sources, based on the Aramaic designation Saypā (ܣܝܦܐ), "sword", pronounced as Seyfo, and as Sayfo in the Western dialect (the term abbreviates shato d'sayfo "year of the sword"; compare the use of Shoah in English based on the Hebrew ha-Šoah).

Contemporary sources usually speak of the events in terms of a massacre of Christians by the Ottoman Empire, listing the Greek Orthodox, Syriac Christian and Armenian Christian victims together.^[9]

The Aramaic name Qeṭlā ḏ-‘Amā Āṯûrāyā (ܩܛܠܐ ܕܥܡܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ), which literally means "killing of the Assyrian people", is used by some groups to describe these events. The word Qṭolcamo (ܩܛܠܥܡܐ) which means Genocide is also used in Assyrian diaspora media. The term used in Turkish media is Süryani Soykırımı.

In countries of the Assyrian diaspora where the designation "Assyrian" has become controversial, notably Germany and Sweden, alternative terms such as Assyriska/syrianska folkmordet "Assyrian/Syriac genocide".

Reasons

Reasons suggested for the genocide vary.

The Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians were the subject of forced relocations and executions, a possible cause being religious persecution of the Christian community of Anatolia. The Assyrians were included as a subsection of the Armenians.

The Assyro-Chaldean National Council stated in a December 4, 1922, memorandum that the total death toll was unknown, but it estimated that about 275,000 "Assyro-Chaldeans" died between 1914 and 1918.^[10]

Political situation before World War I

Before the war approximately one half of the Assyrian population lived in what is today Southern Turkey. The Young Turks took control of the Ottoman Empire only five years before the beginning of World War I. The Ottomans planned to join the side of the Central Powers. In 1914, knowing that it was heading into the war, the Ottoman government passed a law that required the conscription of all young males into the Ottoman army to support the war effort.

Assyrians in what is now Turkey primarily lived in the provinces of Hakkari, Şırnak, and Mardin. These areas also had a sizable Kurdish population. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on October 29, 1914.

Documented accounts of the massacre

Hannibal Travis, Assistant Professor of Law at Florida International University, wrote in the peer-reviewed journal Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal that:^[11]

Numerous articles in the American press documented the genocide of Assyrians by the Turks and their Kurdish allies. By 1918, The Los Angeles Times carried the story of a Syrian, or most likely an Assyrian, merchant from Urmia who stated that his city was ‘‘completely wiped out, the inhabitants massacred,’’ 200 surrounding villages ravaged, 200,000 of his people dead, and hundreds of thousands of more starving to death in exile from their agricultural lands. In an article entitled ‘‘Native Christians Massacred,’’ the Associated Press correspondent reported that in the vicinity of Urmia, ‘‘Turkish regular troops and Kurds are persecuting and massacring Assyrian Christians.’’ Close to 800 were confirmed dead in Urmia, and another 2,000 had perished from disease. Two hundred Assyrians had been burned to death inside a church, and the Russians had discovered more than 700 bodies of massacre victims in the village of Hafdewan outside Urmia, ‘‘mostly naked and mutilated,’’ some with gunshot wounds, others decapitated, and still others carved to pieces.

Other leading British and American newspapers corroborated these accounts of the Assyrian genocide. The New York Times reported on 11 October that 12,000 Persian Christians had died of massacre, hunger, or disease; thousands of girls as young as seven had been raped or forcibly converted to Islam; Christian villages had been destroyed, and three-fourths of these Christian villages were burned to the ground.^[12] The Times of London was perhaps the first widely respected publication to document the fact that 250,000 Assyrians and Chaldeans eventually died in the Ottoman genocide of Christians, a figure which many journalists and scholars have subsequently accepted....

As the Earl of Listowel, speaking in the House of Lords on 28 November 1933, stated, ‘‘the Assyrians fought on our side during the war,’’ and made ‘‘enormous sacrifices,’’ having ‘‘lost altogether by the end of the War about two-thirds of their total number.’'....

About half of the Assyrian nation died of murder, disease, or exposure as refugees during the war, according to the head of the Anglican Church, which had a mission to the Assyrians.

In April 1915, Ottoman Troops easily invaded Gawar, a region of Hakkari, and massacred the entire population.^{[13][unreliable source?]} Prior to this, in October 1914, 71 Assyrian men of Gawar were arrested and taken to the local government centre in Bashkalla and killed.^{[14][page needed]} Also in April, Kurdish troops surrounded the village of Tel Mozilt and imprisoned 475 men (among them, Reverend Gabrial, the famous red-bearded priest). The following morning, the prisoners were taken out in rows of four and shot. Arguments rose between the Kurds and the Ottoman officials on what to do with the women and orphans left behind.

Massacres at Van

Cevdet Paşa the governor of Van, is reported to have held a meeting in February 1915 at which he said, "We have cleansed the Armenians and Syriac [Christian]s from Azerbaijan, and we will do the same in Van".^[15]

In late 1915, Cevdet Bey, Military Governor of Van Province, upon entering Siirt (or Seert) with 8,000 soldiers whom he himself called "The Butchers' Battalion" (Turkish: Kasap Taburu),^[16] ordered the massacre of almost 20,000 Assyrian civilians in at least 30 villages. The following is a list^[16] documenting the villages that were attacked by Cevdet's soldiers and the estimated number of Assyrian deaths:

The village of Sairt/Seert, was populated by Assyrians and Armenians. Seert was the seat of a Chaldean Archbishop, the orientalist Addai Scher who was murdered by the Kurds.

On March 3, 1918, the Ottoman army led by Kurdish soldiers, assassinated one of the most important Assyrian leaders at the time, Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin. This resulted in the only retaliation of the Assyrians during all of World War I. Malik Khoshaba led an attack against the Ottomans. During the attack, some 30 soldiers were killed or wounded.

Massacres in Persian villages

Ottoman forces learned of the withdrawal of Russian forces from Persia in late 1914. In response, the 36th and 37th divisions of the Ottoman army were sent westward and entered the northwestern part of Persia. Before the end of 1914, Turkish and Kurdish troops had successfully entered the villages in and around Urmia. On February 21, 1915 the Turkish army in Urmia seized 61 leading Assyrians from the French missions as hostages, demanding large ransoms. The mission had enough money to convince the Ottomans to let 20 of the men go. However, on February 22 the remaining 41 were executed, having their heads cut off at the stairs of the Charbachsh Gate. The dead included bishop Mar Denkha.

These villages were completely unarmed. The only protection they had was when the Russian army finally took control of the area, years after the presence of the Ottoman army had been removed. On February 25, 1915, Ottoman troops stormed their way into the villages of Gulpashan and Salamas. Almost all of the men of the village of Golpashan were shot. In Salamas about 750 Armenian and Assyrian refugees were protected by Turkish civilians in the village. The commander of the Ottoman division stormed the houses despite the fact that Turks lived in them, and roped all the men together in large groups and forced them to march in the fields between Khusrawa and Haftevan. The men were shot or killed in other ways. The protection of Christians by Turkish civilians is also confirmed in the 1915 British report:^[14]

Many Moslems tried to save their Christian neighbours and offered them shelter in their houses, but the Turkish authorities were implacable.

During the Winter of 1915, 4,000 Assyrians died from disease, hunger, and exposure, and about 1000 were killed in the villages of Urmia.

Massacre of Khoi, Persia

In early 1918, many Assyrians started to flee present-day Turkey. Mar Shimon Benyamin had arranged for some 3,500 Assyrians to reside in the district of Khoi. Not long after settling in, Kurdish troops of the Ottoman Army massacred the population almost entirely. One of the few that survived was Reverend John Eshoo. After escaping, he stated:

You have undoubtedly heard of the Assyrian massacre of Khoi, but I am certain you do not know the details.

These Assyrians were assembled into one caravansary, and shot to death by guns and revolvers. Blood literally flowed in little streams, and the entire open space within the caravansary became a pool of crimson liquid. The place was too small to hold all the living victims waiting for execution. They were brought in groups, and each new group was compelled to stand over the heap of the still bleeding bodies and shot to death. The fearful place became literally a human slaughter house, receiving its speechless victims, in groups of ten and twenty at a time, for execution.

At the same time, the Assyrians, who were residing in the suburb of the city, were brought together and driven into the spacious courtyard of a house [...] The Assyrian refugees were kept under guard for eight days, without anything to eat. At last they were removed from their place of confinement and taken to a spot prepared for their brutal killing. These helpless Assyrians marched like lambs to their slaughter, and they opened not their mouth, save by sayings "Lord, into thy hands we commit our spirits. [...]

The executioners began by cutting first the fingers of their victims, join by joint, till the two hands were entirely amputated. Then they were stretched on the ground, after the manner of the animals that are slain in the Fast, but these with their faces turned upward, and their heads resting upon the stones or blocks of wood Then their throats were half cut, so as to prolong their torture of dying, and while struggling in the agony of death, the victims were kicked and clubbed by heavy poles the murderers carried Many of them, while still laboring under the pain of death, were thrown into ditches and buried before their souls had expired.

The young men and the able-bodied men were separated from among the very young and the old. They were taken some distance from the city and used as targets by the shooters. They all fell, a few not mortally wounded. One of the leaders went to the heaps of the fallen and shouted aloud, swearing by the names of Islam's prophets that those who had not received mortal wounds should rise and depart, as they would not be harmed any more. A few, thus deceived, stood up, but only to fall this time killed by another volley from the guns of the murderers.

Some of the younger and good looking women, together with a few little girls of attractive appearance, pleaded to be killed. Against their will were forced into Islam's harems. Others were subjected to such fiendish insults that I cannot possibly describe. Death, however, came to their rescue and saved them from the vile passions of the demons. The death toll of Assyrians totaled 2,770 men, women and children.^[18]

Baquba camps

By mid-1918, the British army had convinced the Ottomans to let them have access to about 30,000 Assyrians from various parts of Persia. The British decided to deport all 30,000 from Persia to Baquba, Iraq. The transferring took just 25 days, but at least 7,000 of them had died during the trip.^[19]

A memorandum from American Presbyterian Missionaries at Urmia During the Great War 16 to British Minister Sir Percy Cox had this to say:

Capt. Gracey doubtless talked rather big in the hopes of putting heart into the Syrians and holding up this front against the Turks. [Consequently,] We have met all the orders issued by the late Dr. Shedd which have been presented to us and a very large number of Assyrian refugees are being maintained at Baquba, chiefly at H.M.G.'s expense.

In 1920, the British decided to close down the Baquba camps. The majority of Assyrians of the camp decided to go back to the Hakkari mountains, while the rest were dispersed throughout Iraq. In 1933 a number of Assyrians were killed in Iraq. To this day Assyrians in Iraq make up an important Iraqi minority group.

Massacres in the late Ottoman Empire

The Assyrians were not going to be an easy group to deport, as they had always been armed and were as ferocious as their Kurdish neighbors.^[20]

Eyewitness accounts and quotes

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (October 2008)

Statement of German Missionaries on Urmia.

There was absolutely no human power to protect these unhappy people from the savage onslaught of the invading hostile forces. It was an awful situation. At midnight the terrible exodus began; a concourse of 25,000 men, women, and children, Assyrians and Armenians, leaving cattle in the stables, all their household hoods and all the supply of food for winter, hurried, panic-stricken, on a long and painful journey to the Russian border, enduring the intense privations of a foot journey in the snow and mud, without any kind of preparation… It was a dreadful sight,… many of the old people and children died along the way.

– ^[22]

The latest news is that four thousand Assyrians and one hundred Armenians have died of disease alone, at the mission, within the last five months. All villages in the surrounding district with two or three exceptions have been plundered and burnt; twenty thousand Christians have been slaughtered in Armenia and its environs. In Haftewan, a village of Salmas, 750 corpses without heads have been recovered from the wells and cisterns alone. Why? Because the commanding officer had put a price on every Christian head… In Dilman crowds of Christians were thrown into prison and driven to accept Islam.

– ^[23]

Recognition

Genocide monument in Paris, France

The genocide of Assyrians is not officially recognized by any government. This is in contrast to the Armenian Genocide, which has been recognized by many countries and international organizations. Assyrian historians state the primary reason for this lack of recognition is that Assyria has been deprived of real political power throughout the 20th century.^{[citation needed]} In addition, the massacre of Christians in Asia Minor is usually linked solely to the Armenian Genocide (and less to the Greek genocide and the Assyrian genocide). On April 24, 2001, Governor of the US state of New York, George Pataki, proclaimed that "killings of civilians and food and water deprivation during forced marches across harsh, arid terrain proved successful for the perpetrators of genocide, who harbored a prejudice against ... Assyrian Christians."^[24] In December 2007, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the world's leading genocide scholars organization, overwhelmingly passed a resolution officially recognizing the Assyrian genocide, along with the genocide against Ottoman Greeks.^[25] The vote in favour was 83%. The full text of the resolution reads:

WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides;

WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;

BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution.

In June 2008, Yilmaz Kerimo and Ibrahim Baylan both from the Swedish Social Democratic Party, brought a bill to the Swedish parliament for the recognition of a genocide. The parliament resoundingly voted against it, 37 to 245.

Additionally, the [Kurdish People's Party|PKK], a Kurdish nationalist organization has made a statement recognizing the genocide as a, as they refer to it "Dersim Genocide", which included not only Greeks, Assyrians and Armenions, but also Kurds, Alevis and (interestingly enough) Jews. [2] While this is definitely a statement of support to the Assyrians, the inclusion of Kurds on the list of victims and the denial that Kurds also took part in the proceedings willingly makes the real level of support is doubtful.

Monuments

Monument in California.

The only governments that have allowed Assyrians to establish monuments commemorating the victims of the Assyrian genocide are France, Sweden, and the United States. Sweden's government has pledged to pay for all the expenses of a future monument, after strong lobbying from the large Assyrian community there, led by Konstantin Sabo. There are two monuments in the U.S., one in Chicago and the newest in Tarzana, California.

There have been recent reports indicating that Armenia is ready to create a monument dedicated to the Assyrian genocide, placed in the capital next to the Armenian genocide monument.

School institutions

In Canada, the Assyrian Genocide, along with the Armenian Genocide, are included in a course covering historical genocides. Turkish organisations, along with other non-Turkish Muslim organisations, have reacted to this and protested.

See also

• Newspaper documentation of the Assyrian Genocide
• Assyrian independence
• List of Assyrian settlements
• Simele massacre
• Yusuf Akbulut

Notes

Literature

• Sébastien de Courtois (2004). The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, the Last Arameans. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1593330774. OCLC 55992654. http://books.google.se/books?id=whDcogCNZs4C&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#PPA195,M1. 
• Salahi Ramadan Sonyel (2001). The Assyrians of Turkey: Victims of Major Power Policy. Turkish Historical Society Printing House. ISBN 9751612969. OCLC 49378769. http://books.google.com/books?id=YAvgAAAACAAJ. 
• Ronald Sempill Stafford (2006). The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1593334133. OCLC 173087158. http://books.google.com/books?id=LSzuzsRh37gC&printsec=frontcover. 
• Yonan Shahbaz (2006). The Rage of Islam: An Account of the Massacres of Christians by the Turks in Persia. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1593334117. OCLC 76941896. http://books.google.com/books?id=Be6ShoFaaQkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn=1593334117. 
• W. A. Wigram (2002). The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1931956111. OCLC 49825930. http://books.google.com/books?id=LnpIkgiKUhYC&printsec=frontcover. 

See also

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