19 May The Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day and Mustafa Kemal

7/30/2019 19 May The Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day and Mustafa Kemal

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CENTRE DE LA RECHERCHE SCENTFQUE DU KURDSTANC.R.S.K.

19 May, The Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day

AndMustafa Kemal

By Dr Ali KILI Paris 19 May 2013

In the Proclamation of the Provisional Gouverment independent the

Kurdistan of the Kogiri, March 6, 1921 by Alier Kogiri Zade who declaredcitizens it is essential to turn and shoot your guns against the Kemalist militaryand support unconditionally the struggle of the Pontian Greek people by our

internationalist solidarity. Judge and condemn war crimes, crimes of genocideand crimes against humanity committed by Enver,Talat, Cemal and the

criminnels Kemalists.

The Greek genocide, part of which is

known as the Pontic genocide, was the

systematic extermination of the

Christian Greek population from its

historic homeland in Asia Minor,

central Anatolia, and Pontus during

World War I and its aftermath (1914

23). It was instigated by the

government of the Ottoman Empireagainst the Greek population of the


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Empire and it included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches,

summary expulsions, arbitrary executions, and destruction of Christian

Orthodox cultural, historical and religious monuments. According to various

sources, several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period.

Some of the survivors and refugees, especially those in Eastern provinces, tookrefuge in the neighbouring Russian Empire. After the end of the 191922 Greco-

Turkish War, most of the Greeks remaining in the Ottoman Empire were

transferred to Greece under the terms of the 1923 population exchange between

Greece and Turkey. Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Ottoman

Empire during this period, including Assyrians and Armenians, and some

scholars consider those events to be part of the same policy of extermination.

The Pontian genocide of 1916-1922 is the most tragic page of Pontian Greek

history. The Pontians had suffered a lot throughout their history of nearly 3.000

years, but the genocide was the most terrible of their misfortunes, for it deprived

the Greeks of the Black sea not only of their friends and relatives, but also of

their native land. And it is evident that remembrance of the genocide is

necessary not only for relatives and descendants of the lost such terrible factsof human history must be known to all. For if people forget about the pain of

other people, if they pass it by with indifference, they kill inside their souls a

part of their humanity and this must not be allowed to happen, lest tragedies

of this kind might be repeated

War crimes: That is to say, violations of the laws and customs of war.Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or


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deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of the

occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the

seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton

destruction of cities and villages, or devastation not justified by military

necessity.

Crimes against humanity: That is to say, murder, extermination,

enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any

civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions political, racial or

religious group. Undoubtedly, genocide is the crime that involves the destruction

of one national religious, racial groups. The problem that now arises is whether

the crime is only one of national importance, it is as if the international

community is interested. More than one reason pleads for the second alternative.

Treat genocide national crime only makes no sense, since by its very nature, the

author is one of the powerful state groups I'appui this state: a state never pursuean organized crime is perpetrated by itself.

Mustafa Kemal and Nureddine Pacha

By its legal, moral and human nature, genocide is considered as an

international crime. The conscience of mankind was deeply shocked by this kind

of barbarism mass. Consequently, the crime of genocide would be recognized in

the treaty as a conspiracy to destroy or weaken national religious order groups,

racial. The manifestation of this crime can be externalized by attacks against the

life, liberty is the property of members of such groups, and, in their capacity asmembers of this group. The characterization of this crime can go as follows:


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"Anyone who participates A while a plot destruction naked weakening of national, racialreligious one commits an attack against the life, liberty, property of members of such a group

is guilty of crime of genocide. " Crime and characterized to be included in each national

criminal code of the signatories.

2. The defendants may be required to respond to this crime not only court in thecountry or the act was committed, but, in case of leakage, and with the same

authority, the courts of the country where they were apprehended.

3. Persons charged with genocide should not be regarded as political criminalsfor extradition. The, extradition would be granted on a case or sufficient

guarantees would be provided by the requesting country, the guilty will beeffectively prosecuted.

4. The genocide charges would be borne by those who carried out the ordersgiven and as well as each of the instigators of crime, whatever their methods

included the development and education of criminal doctrine of genocide.

Members of governments and political organizations or bodies that have allowedthe genocide will also be responsible.

5. Regardless of the responsibility of individuals for genocide, the states in

which such a policy would be followed would be held accountable by the

Security Council of the United Nations. The Council was to request the

International Court of Justice to issue a voluntary notice, in order to determine

whether a state of genocide exists in a given country, before requesting, amongother things, sanctions against the country. The Security Council can act on itsown initiative or on the basis of petitions submitted to him by members of

national, racial or religious groups involved, whether or not resident in the State

accused.

New conceptions require new terms. By "genocide" we mean the

destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. This new word, coined by the

author to denote an old practice in its modern development, is made from the

ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing), thuscorresponding in its formation to such words as tyrannicide, homocide,

infanticide.1

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the

immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings

of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of

different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of

national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The

objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social

institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic

existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty,health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.


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Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions

involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as

members of the national group.

Topal Osman

Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the

oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the

oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population

which is allowed to remain or upon the territory alone, after removal of thepopulation and the colonization by the oppressor's own nationals.

In 1908, the Young Turks (Turkish nationalists) gained control of the

government by revolting against Sultan Hamid. After the Ottoman Empire's

defeat in the Balkan Wars of 1912 1913, the Committee of Union and

Progress (CUP), an ultra- nationalist group of Young Turks, took control of the

government. Its goal was to achieve the Turkification of the Empire by

eliminating ethnic Christian minorities such as the Armenians, Assyrians, andPontian Greeks.

The decision to implement the genocide was taken by the Young Turks (Cemal,

Enver and Talat Pasha) in 1911, and was put into practice during the First World

War, and then completed by Mustafa Kemal in 1919 - 1923. The persecutionsoriginally appeared in the form of violence, destruction of property, deportations

and exiles. Soon though, they became better organized, extensive and turnedgravely against the Greeks and the Armenians.

The first phase of the Greek Genocide is traced to 1908 and lasts until the

beginning of World War I with the rise of the Young Turks to powerfulpositions in the Ottoman Empire. Germany's assistance as a strategic ally of the


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Ottoman state created the right conditions for the initiation of the expulsion of

the Greeks of Thrace. During that period, there are no more declarations by the

Young Turks regarding fair and equal treatment of all minorities - on the

contrary the Greeks were now marked for extermination. A major part of this

extermination was the "Special Organization", whose paramilitary structuremade the Greeks and the Armenians their targets.

The second period began in 1914 when fighting during World War I allowed the

promotion of the genocidal policies. The Young Turk government ordered a

number of actions to be taken in order to further continue the extermination ofthe Greeks together with the genocide of the Armenians.

The period 1919-1923 is the third and last yet more intense phase of the

genocide which saw the establishment of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) into the

interior of the Ottoman state. Coincidentally this is the time of the establishmentof the Soviet Union which provided aid to the nationalistic movement of Kemal,

as well as the change of course in exterior policy affairs of the great Europeanpowers.

The Young Turks and the Kemalist authorities pre-planned and realized the

genocide. The orders for the deportations of the Greek populations to Kurdistan,

Syria and elsewhere either in the form of governmental decisions, either as bills

of the National Assembly, such as 1041 of the 12th June 1921 and 941 of the

16th June in the same year, had been signed both by the Young Turks and

Kemal himself. Consequently until 1923, the Young-Turks and the Kemalists,

having taken harsh measures against the Greeks through the means of


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expulsions, rapes, slaughters, deportations and hangings, exterminated hundreds

of thousands of Greeks.

Among the victims of the genocide were a great number of women and children,

which was one of the particular plans of the extermination plan. This can beverified through the reports and documents of foreign ambassadors, consuls,

embassies, and others where one can find references to these acts of slaughterand brutality.

The final chapter of this mass murder deals with the forced removal of the

survivors from their homeland. With the treaty regarding the population

exchange which was signed by both Greece and Turkey in 1923, the uprooting

of the Thracian Greeks from their land is completed, thus ending the case of one

of the bloodiest mass murders in the history of mankind. After 27 centuries of

presence, prosperity and contribution of a historical nation, the Greeks ofThrace, Pontus, Asia Minor, Cappadocia etc, abandoned the land of their

ancestors, their homes, churches, graves, and a culture which had world wideappeal.

The Greeks of the former Ottoman Empire who nowadays reside in Greece,U.S.A, Canada, Australia, the remainder of Europe and throughout the world,

want justice to be attributed in the name of their ancestors that were murdered

during the genocide by the Ottoman state. A genocide that cost the life of

1.000.000 Greeks and resulted in more than 1.220.000 Greeks becomingrefugees.

Who are the Pontian Greeks?Pontus (Greek Pontos), an ancient Greek word for "sea", refers to the Black Sea

and the surrounding coastal areas. The presence of Greeks in the area dates back

to ancient times some 2000 years before the migration of Turkic people to thisarea in the 10th century A.D. Research suggests that in the period around 1000


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B.C., the first trading journeys in this area took place, mainly in search of gold

and other minerals. During the 8th Century B.C. Greeks from Miletus (Greek

Miletos) colonized this area, establishing cities like Sinope, Samsun (Greek

Amisos) and Trebizond or Trapezunt (Greek Trapezus). Pontus contributed great

thinkers such as the philosopher Diogenes of Sinope and the geographer Straboof Amasia.

. The Armenians are not the only subject people in Turkey which have suffered

from this policy of making Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks. The

story which I have told about the Armenians I could also tell with certain

modifications about the Greeks and Syrians [Assyrians]. Indeed the Greeks

were the first victims of this nationalizing idea .1

With the commencement of World War I in 1914, Turkey called for general

mobilization. Since the Christian men were not allowed to bare arms, theywere sent to labor battalions in the interior of Turkey, which were essentially

"battalions of death." Forced labor in the treacherous mountains and ravines,

hunger, and exposure to severe weather conditions killed most of those forcedto serve in these labor battalions. Some of those who survived were able to

escape to join those Greeks in the mountains who took up arms to protect

themselves and their families.

After eliminating a significant part of the male population, the Young Turk

leaders and later Kemal Ataturk, proceeded to eliminate the rest of the Greekpopulation including the elderly, women, and children. Their plan was todeport the Greek population to the interior and expose them to severe weather

conditions, hunger, and illness. Censorship was used quite effectively to avoid

headlines in the foreign press. After executing many prominent Greeks in the

western Pontus, the Turks proceeded to deport a large part of the Greek

population to the interior, Kurdistan, and population to the interior, Kurdistan,

and as far as Syria .

Figure I. Map of Greece and Turkey,

circa 1912 Following the death ofAlexander the Great, the Greek city-

states of Pontus and the Pontian

hinterland formed the Kingdom of Pontus

under the Mithridates family. The

Kingdom was the most powerful in the

eastern Mediterranean until its defeat by

the Romans in 63 B.C.

1 From The Murder of a Nation by Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador toTurkey (1913-1916)


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In January, 1916, the Greek deportations from the Black Sea began. These

Greeks came through the city of Marsovan by thousands, walking for the most

part the three days' journey through the snow and mud and slush of the winter

weather. Thousands fell by the wayside from exhaustion and others came into

the city of Marsovan in groups of fifty, one hundred and five hundred, alwaysunder escort of Turkish gendarmes. Next morning these poor refugees were

started on the road and destruction by this treatment was even more radical

than a straight massacre such as theArmenians suffered before. (p. 194)2

With the advent of Christianity, in late Roman and early Byzantine times the

great monasteries of Pontus were founded in the high mountains southeast of

Trapezus, most notably the monastery of Panagia Soumela (Virgin Mary of

Soumela) in 386 A.D. Pontus produced two of the greatest intellectuals of the

Meditarranean world, Cardinal Bessarion, and George the Trapezuntine.

The fragmentation of the Byzantine Empire, as a result of the Latin conquest of

Constantinople in 1204 by the Crusaders, led to the emergence of the Greek

Empire of Trebizond under the great Byzantine dynasty, the Comnenus family.

The Empire finally fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1461, some eight years after the

fall of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, in 1453.

During the first two hundred years of Ottoman rule, the Pontian Greekssuccessfully resisted the extraordinary pressures to convert to Islam.

Geographic, economic, and historical factors all combined to enable the PontianGreeks to preserve their dynamic social cohesion, deeply rooted ethnic

traditions, and distinctive Greek culture and dialect.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, approximately 250,000 Pontian Greeks were

forced to convert to Islam. Although most Greeks remained in the Pontus,

thousands migrated into areas of the Caucasus and northern shores of the BlackSea controlled by Russia. This movement into Russian territory which began in

1774 was encouraged by Russia, which preferred that this area be populated

with fellow Christians. Pontian Greeks also fled there to escape Turkishoppression and persecution, particularly following the numerous Russian-

Turkish wars in the nineteenth century, along the Caucasus, in which the

Ottomans suffered one defeat after another. They took out their frustrations on

the Pontian Greeks and the Armenians who lived in the border areas, in the

Trebizond to Erzerum provinces.

2

From The Blight of Asia, by GeorgeHorton, U.S. Consul-General in the Near East, 1926:


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Nevertheless, in an attempt to bring the Ottoman Empire into the world

economy, new laws were introduced in the 19th century to modernize the

empire. The lives of Ottoman subjects, including the Christian minorities were

also improved by attempts to assert the control of the central government and to

contain the oppressive rule of local Turkish despots. Unfortunately, the resultingsocial, religious and economic renaissance in the Christian communities ended

during the beginning of the 20th Century.

The Pontian Greek Genocide

In 1908, the Young Turks (Turkish nationalists) gained control of the

government by revolting against Sultan Hamid. After the Ottoman Empire's

defeat in the Balkan Wars of 1912 1913, the Committee of Union and

Progress (CUP), an ultra- nationalist group of Young Turks, took control of the

government. Its goal was to achieve the Turkification of the Empire byeliminating ethnic Christian minorities such as the Armenians, Assyrians, and

Pontian Greeks. From The Murder of a Nation by Henry Morgenthau, AmericanAmbassador to Turkey (1913-1916)

. . The Armenians are not the only subject people in Turkey which have suffered

from this policy of making Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks. The story

which I have told about the Armenians I could also tell with certain

modifications about the Greeks and Syrians [Assyrians]. Indeed the Greeks

were the first victims of this nationalizing idea .

With the commencement of World War I in 1914, Turkey called for general

mobilization. Since the Christian men were not allowed to bare arms, they were

sent to labor battalions in the interior of Turkey, which were essentially

"battalions of death." Forced labor in the treacherous mountains and ravines,

hunger, and exposure to severe weather conditions killed most of those forced to

serve in these labor battalions. Some of those who survived were able to escape

to join those Greeks in the mountains who took up arms to protect themselves

and their families.

After eliminating a significant part of the male population, the Young Turk

leaders and later Kemal Ataturk, proceeded to eliminate the rest of the Greek

population including the elderly, women, and children. Their plan was to deport

the Greek population to the interior and expose them to severe weatherconditions, hunger, and illness. Censorship was used quite effectively to avoid

headlines in the foreign press. After executing many prominent Greeks in the

western Pontus, the Turks proceeded to deport a large part of the Greek

population to the interior, Kurdistan, and as far as Syria.

From The Blight of Asia, by George Horton, U.S. Consul-General in theNear East, 1926:


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In January, 1916, the Greek deportations from the Black Sea began. These

Greeks came through the city of Marsovan by thousands, walking for the most

part the three days' journey through the snow and mud and slush of the winter

weather. Thousands fell by the wayside from exhaustion and others came intothe city of Marsovan in groups of fifty, one hundred and five hundred, always

under escort of Turkish gendarmes. Next morning these poor refugees were

started on the road and destruction by this treatment was even more radical

than a straight massacre such as theArmenians suffered before. (p. 194)3

From a report by Stanley K. Hopkins of the Near East Relief, November 16,

1921:After leaving Samsoun on my return trip to Harpoot I passed the old men

of Samsoun, Greeks, who were being deported. Many of these men wee feeble

with age, but in spite of that they were being pressed forward at a rate of thirty

miles a day and there was no transport available for those who were weak or ill.

There was no food allowance for them and any food they could obtain had to be

procured by money or sale of small articles that they could carry with them. On

this trip I passed many corpses of Greeks lying by the roadside where they had

died from exposure. Many of these were the corpses of women and girls with

their faces toward the sky, covered with flies. (Genocide, 13, pp. 219-220)

From Lloyd George, British Prime Minister, House of Commons (ParliamentDebates):... tens of thousands of (Greek) men, women and Children were

expelled and dying. It was clearly a deliberate extermination. "Extermination" isnot my word. It is the word being used by the American mission.

From The Memorandum by Mr. G.W. Rendel, of the Foreign Office, on Turkish

Massacres and Persecutions of Minorities since the Armistice. March 20, 1922.

"Serious persecutions in the Mardin area, affecting about 30,000 Christians

were also reported by Sir P Cox. But the worst atrocities undoubtedly took place

in the Pontic region against the Greek Pontic region against the Greek

population of the coastal towns."

By 1923, out of an approximate 700,000 Pontian Greeks who lived inTurkey at the beginning of World War I, as many as 350,000 were killed,and almost all the rest had been uprooted during the subsequent forcedpopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey. This was the end of one

of the ancient Greek civilizations in Asia Minor.

As a consequence of the deliberate and systematic policy of Turkification of the

Ottoman Empire, it is estimated that more than 2.75 million Armenians,

Assyrians and Greeks were slaughtered outright or were victims of the "white3From a report by Stanley K. Hopkins of the Near East Relief, November 16, 1921


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death" of disease and starvation a result of the routine process of

deportations, slave labor, and death marches.

The Pontian Greek Genocide and Mustafa Kemal 1919

Pontian and Anatolian Greeks were victims of a broader Turkish genocidal

project aimed at all Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire. A total of more

than 3.5 million Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians were killed under the

successive regimes of the Young Turks and of Mustafa Kemal from roughly

1914 to 1923. Of this, as many as 1.5 million Greeks may have died. The end of

the genocide marked a profound rupture in the long Greek historical presence on

the Asia Minor. Greek communities began inhabiting Anatolia (Greek for

east), otherwise referred to as the Asia Minor, since the 12th century BCE.

They centered mostly along the Aegean littoral, although some Greeks, known

as Pontians, went further east and colonized the southern shores of the Black

Sea. Turkic peoples migrated into Anatolia over the first millennium CE and by

the 14th century had established the Ottoman Empire. Over the next six hundred

years, the Empire organized its ethnically diverse population into the millet

system, thereby ensuring cultural and religious pluralism. Under this system, the

Ottoman Greeks, like other Christian communities in the Empire, were provided

with a degree of autonomy.

The geographic extent and political power of the Ottoman Empire began to

decline over the 19th century as subjected peoples, especially the Greeks, beganexerting their own nationalist aspirations. With the support of the Great Powers,

the Greeks successfully overthrew Ottoman rule during their War of

Independence from 1821 to 1830, thereby establishing the modern Greek state

as it is currently situated at the tip of the Balkan Peninsula. However, the over

two and a half million ethnic Greeks still living in Anatolia, separated from their

Balkan compatriots, suffered the scorn of an increasingly vitriolic Turkish

nationalism tainted by a bitter sense of humiliation. The Young Turk movement

emerged from this context, eventually aiming to turn the multiethnic Ottoman

Empire into a homogenous Turkish nation state. Under the banner of theCommittee for the Union of Progress (CUP), this ethnic nationalist movement

assumed power after a coup dtatin 1913.


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This political revolution occurred in the midst of the Balkan Wars from October1912 to July 1913, which ultimately ended five centuries of Ottoman rule in the

Balkans. Afterwards, there was a brief diplomatic effort between the Greeks and

the CUP to arrange a population exchange. However, the outbreak of World

War I stunted this effort, and instead the CUP took its own radical initiatives.

They began singling out all able-bodied Greek men, forcibly conscripting them

into labor battalions which performed slave labor for the Turkish war effort.

Greek children were stolen and forcibly assimilated into Turkish society. Greek

villages were brutally plundered and terrorized under the pretext of internal

security. Indeed, as with the Armenians, the Greeks were generally accused as adisloyal and traitorous fifth-column, and eventually most of the population

was rounded up and forcibly deported to the interior. This modus operadi wasmore or less the same for all three Christian victim groups.

Greek men in Smyrna guarded by Turkish troops for deportation to the interior(September 1922).


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Again with support of the Great Powers, Greece invaded part of Anatolia

immediately after the defeat of the Ottomans in World War I. Centered around

the Aegean port city of Smyrna (now known by its Turkish name, zmir), Greekoccupation forces brutally subjected local Turks, thereby further stoking

interethnic conflagrations. At the same time, Mustafa Kemal Pasha was leading

a Turkish resurgence, eventually dispelling the Greek military from Anatolia.

Turkish forces retook Smyrna in September 1922, instigating a massive anti-Greek pogrom. On September 13, a fire broke out amidst the chaos, spreading

uncontrollably over the next two weeks. The Smyrna catastrophe took the lives

of somewhere between 10,000 to 15,000 Greeks. Two months later, diplomatic

negotiations between the Kemalist regime and the Great Powers began in

Switzerland, leading to the signing of the Treat of Lausanne in February 1923.

The sovereign status of a Turkish nation state was thereby affirmed, and theGreat Powers essentially condoned the Turkish genocidal project.

The demographic consequences of the Greek genocide are not objectively

certain. The prewar population of Greeks was at least 2.5 million. Over the

course of 1914 to 1923, about one million had migrated, some voluntarily butmost under coercion. As many as 1.5 million Greeks died, either from massacre

or exposure, although this figure is not positive. Presently, a miniscule Greek

population remains in Turkey. Greek communities annually commemorate thegenocide on September 14 in recognition of the Smyrna catastrophe.

In 1994, May 19 was selected by the Greek parliament as the day tocommemorate the Pontian Greek Genocide by the Turks. The Pontic Genocide

is one of the darkest moments in history not only for Greeks, but also for

mankind. The Genocide vanished from its ancestral and historic homeland in

Pontus a culturally vibrant and unique part of the Greek population that hadbeen fighting for its survival for about 3,000 years.

Records show a minimum 350,000 Pontian Greeks exterminated through

systematic slaughter by Turkish troops, deportations involving death marches,

starvation in labor and concentration camps, rapes and individual killings. Entirevillages and cities were devastated, while thousands were forced to flee to


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neighboring countries. The Ottoman governments plan to annihilate the

Christian populations living within Turkey, including Greeks, Syrians and

Armenians, during World War I was set into force in 1914 with the decree that

all Pontian men aged between 18 to 50 would have to report to the military.

Those who refused to do so, were ordered to be shot immediately.

Among the causes for the Turkish campaign against the Greek population was a

fear that the population would aid the Ottoman Empires enemies, and a belief

among nationalist Turks that in order to form a modern nation state it was

necessary to purge from the territories of the state those national groups who

could threaten the integrity of a modern Turkish nation. With the guidance of

German advisers the Turkish regime created the so called amele taburu (labor

battalions) were the Pontian Greeks who did not enter the Ottoman army would

have to work under inhuman conditions in mines, construction works and

quarries.

The Ottoman regime feared the Pontiac population not only because of their

rapidly growing numbers that had reached 700,000 by the early 20th century,

but also because of the cultural and economic growth of the minority. Cities like

Samsous, Trapezous and Kerasous displayed a remarkable growth with dozens

of schools, newspapers, theaters and other amenities. The rise of the Young

Turks movement, however, would put a brutal end to the thriving Greek

community of the area. While the Greek state was busy solving out the Crete

problem and in no position to open new fronts with Turkey, the Pontians andmany other Greeks across Asia Minor were dislocated and systematicallyexterminated.

The Pontus Question and The Pontian Greek Genocide4

The Greek genocide, part of which is known as the Pontic genocide, was the

systematic extermination of the Christian Ottoman Greek population from its

historic homeland in Asia Minor, central Anatolia, and Pontus during World

War I and its aftermath (191423). It was instigated by the government of theOttoman Empire against the Greek population of the Empire and it includedmassacres, forced deportations involving death marches, summary expulsions,

arbitrary executions, and destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural, historical

and religious monuments. According to various sources, several hundred

thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period.[3]

Some of the survivors and

refugees, especially those in Eastern provinces, took refuge in the neighbouring

Russian Empire. After the end of the 191922 Greco-Turkish War, most of the

Greeks remaining in the Ottoman Empire were transferred to Greece under the

4The Pontus Question Memorandum Submitted to the Peace Conference on March 10, 1920 BY The Pontus Delegation.


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terms of the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Other

ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during this period,

including Assyrians and Armenians, and some scholars consider those events tobe part of the same policy of extermination.

This extermination was confirmed by the letter of Germanos16/29

December 1918 Letter of His Grace Germanos, Lord Archbishop of Amassia

and Samsoun. to President of the Pont-Euxin Unredeemed Greeks Committee

Mr Constantinides

It was with a lively interest that I read your letter of 19/2 December, and

with joy learnt from it the good news about the various organisations of our

countrymen dispersed from Pontus, one of which at Marseilles is under your

Presidency.

And first of all, I congratulate you, as well as those who are grouped

around you, on your patriotic initiative in defence of the rights of Hellenism of

Pontus, and I pray God may crown your efforts with complete success. Over

those efforts presides by good fortune the new Hercules of Hellenism, to deliver

Prometheus from the chains that bind him to the rocks of Caucasia.

I am setting out at once for Amissos, so as to carry out, after conferring

with my parishioners and the bishops of Pontus, all that your programme and the

national needs of Pontus demand.

And, as I understand by the bearer of your letter that, on account of the

want of all communication, you are not informed of the state of our fellow

countrymen of Pontus, I think it my duty to transmit to you, with all possible


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brevity (for the steamer carrying the mails will shortly weigh anchor), a rough

sketch of the great sufferings they have undergone since the outbreak of the

European War.

Euxine Pontus has undergone the greatest calamities and disasters, notonly from the party, at that time allpowerful, of Turkish " Union and Progress,"

but also from all the Turkish people. Some of them, following out a false

political conception, laid the responsibility for all these disasters, for this

extermination of our population, on a party, and the stranger who knows the

Turk only slightly, might actually have believed in the possibility of upholding

Turkish Sovereignty under another more liberal and moderate Government. This

is an error. The destructions, infamies, murders, pillages, and worse, are the

work of the Turkish people, who even during the regime of the pseudo

constitution showed themselves utterly incapable of liberty. They went totally

bankrupt and failed before the bar of history, and by their savage instincts and

criminal acts became worthy only of sentence of death from the political point

of view.

The Turkish people, after having hacked to pieces a million Armenians,

organised and are still organising, according to the same method, similar

outrages. They were led, but only according to their own instincts, by the

Government of Talaat, Enver, Djemal and their accomplices. After having

drowned numberless little Armenian children in the sea and the rivers, the Turks

carried off the young women and wives, putting all the men to death and thendirected their attention to the fortune, honour, and life of the Greek "Raya. "


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At last, exploiting the absence of all control and the ephemeral victories of

the Central Powers, the Turks found it necessary to stamp out Hellenism in

Turkey. However, as much anger had been caused in Europe and America by

the Armenian massacres, and as further open atrocities could only increase the

horror of the whole world, the Turkish people and Government invented a newway of extermination by assassination, less instantly shocking to moral ideas

and the rules of civilisation. The Greek population had to be wiped out by

deportation, hunger, cold, by privations or ill treatment. Thrace, Propontide

(Marmara), the coast of the Aegean Sea, were evacuated of their Greek

populations, which were deported towards the interior of Anatolia and dispersed

among the Turkish villages without shelter, without clothes, dropping and dying

on the way of hunger and fatigue. But it was Pontus that had to undergo the

greatest trials and disasters. First of all, Sinope and the neighbourhood were

evacuated. Then Ayadjik and Karza with all their villages suffered the same fate.

Their inhabitants were scattered among the regions of Castamouni, but the

greater number had already perished on the way as the result of fatigue and ill

treatment. The dead were left without burial, and many women, in the

impossibility of taking with them their children, and constantly beaten by the

soldiers, abandoned them in the mountains, a prey to hunger and wild beasts.

The Turks did not even spare the families of those who died in the Amela-

Tabourou (forced labour battalion), nor was mercy shown to those who, like

beasts of burden, laboured on military works, nor even to the families of thosefallen on the battlefield. Two villages of Ayadjik (caza of Sinope), Yokari-Keuy

and Sernai, to escape death fell away and embraced Islamism. All the others,after the pillage of their wealth, the confiscation of their houses and their cattle,

were led away towards the farthest-off confines of the vilayet of Castamouni,

where the greater part of them died of cold, hunger and cruelties.

Towards the middle of December, 1916, began the deportations from

Amissos (Samsoun). First of all the army reduced to ashes all the region roundabout. Nearly all the villages rich in tobacco plantations, civilised, friends of

progress and possessing a lively national sentiment, were first pillaged and then

set on fire. A large number of women and children were killed, the young girlsof the nation outraged, and immediately afterwards driven into the interior.

Where? Into the vilayet of ^Angora to Tchoroum, to Soungourlou, and still

farther. . . . The winter was of the most rigorous kind ; these girls had to march

30 or 40 days across snow-covered mountains and sleep by night in the open.

For several days they were without food, for they were not even allowed to buybread for money ; they were continually beaten by the gendarmes and stripped

of any money they might have on them ; and when they got to the towns they

were brutally pushed into the hot public baths on the pretext of hygiene and

cleanliness, and just as quickly dragged out. Thus, an easy prey to the rigours of


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the cold, they were driven on farther. The majority of course died on the road,

and none of the dead at all being buried, vultures and dogs feasted on human

flesh.

Meanwhile the expulsions went on ; every day, afar off, we saw clouds ofsmoke, and heard the screams and cries of despair of those who were being torn

from their hearths and homes without our being able to bring them the least

word of consolation. They were sent directly to the place of exile and tortured,

whilst our palace (the bishop's palace) was kept under strict watch by the police

and Turkish soldiery. On the 24th December the greatest part of our traders were

arrested and led away immediately like the lowest of criminals towards the

interior, to Tchoroum, to Soungourlou, etc. On January 6th, 1917 (the day of the

Epiphany), and the following days, the police commissioners tore some away

from our church, others from the arms of their wives, all the merchants without

exception, all the men of science, artisans, and any man of mark, and sent them

one after another into the interior. At Bafra no adult male remained, all having

been sent towards Castamouni ; only the women and the children of the towns

were left, for the male population of Charshamba, Oenoe (Uniah), and of

Therme (Thermoxdon), had likewise suffered the worst, but these city women

and children were left without food or protection, money or bread ; every village

was evacuated and burned. The whole region of Bafra suffered this fate. This

destruction continued until even the lost soul of Rafet Pasha, the notoriousassassin of Hellenism, at last got tired of it all.

Towards the end of the year, when the savage instincts of the tyrant and

his instruments as well as the wild fanaticism of the Turkish were satisfied, I

was at last able to go out towards the mountains to discover and assemble

fragments of evidence as to the catastrophe. I found only ruins and desolation ;

skeletons lay scattered on the mountain. I found but a very small number of

women and children who, hidden in the caverns and the forests, had been able toescape the fury of the excited rabble. In the majority of the villages I was unable

to discover even the ruins. The place had been burned and was now overgrown

with grass. The very small number that had escaped complete destruction werevoid of inhabitants. Spiders had woven their webs over all, and owls flitted

about mournfully hooting.

These misdeeds continued all the summer long. Then towards October a

drunken and ignoble governor suddenly summoned me at the Prefecture ofPolice. After having locked me in his room, he said, " The carriage is below ; be

quick and get up, you are off to Constantinople." I asked him for a delay of at

least a day to get myself ready, and only after a thousand difficulties did he

promise to send me back under police escort to my palace, whence, having takensome money and clothes, I set out again, still escorted by the police. When, after


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having crossed the whole of Asia Minor, ovei mountains and amid the greatest

perils, I got to Constantinople it was only to be imprisoned with the basest of

criminals for the night. I was only released on the morrow as the result of an

energetic complaint on the part of the Patriarchate and the intervention of

influential friends. But sufferings and even death is sweet if it may contribute tothe easing of the pain of one or all, and serve the interests the sacred interests

of humanity. Unfortunately my expulsion was followed by a new series of

misfortunes : Amissos (Samsoun), or rather what was left of its women and

children, abandoned by their pastor, took fright and hid themselves like real

culprits ; and as soon as I was gone, during the months of November and

December, in the depth of the severest winter the surrounding country had ever

known, all the villages of Bafra without exception were evacuated. The people

moved towards the middle of Anatolia, where the remainder perished, after

more than a third of them had found death on the road.

The same misdeeds were repeated in the regions of Tripolis (Tirebolou),

of Kerassunde, and of Kara-Hissar. At the beginning of October, 1916, a

population of 25,000 souls were sent towards the region of Sevastia (Sivas), and

beyond. The town of Ordou (Cotyora) was entirely destroyed as well as the

surrounding region. I went to Sevastia and to Kara- Hissar during the winter of

1916, and there I saw the most tragic and heartbreaking of sights ; a multitude

composed of thousands and thousands of women and children, who weretrudging along over the mountains and water-courses, like cattle driven to the

slaughter. I tried to come to their aid at Sou-Chehir, to ease their situation atSevastia, but that murderer of Armenians, Mouamer Bey, Prefect of Sevastia,

would not even let me distribute a little money among them under the pretext of

getting them used to laziness. He was merely planning thus their extermination

by hunger. And of course that was what happened.

Believe me, my dear Mr. Constantinides, that out of 160,000 people ofPontus deported, only a tenth and in some places a twentieth have survived. In a

village, for example, that counted 100 inhabitants, five only will ever return ; the

others are dead. Rare indeed are those happy villages where a tenth of thedeported population has been saved.


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Trebizonde has suffered less, relatively, because it happened to be in the

occupation of the Russians, but after their departure many of the people of this

town and surrounding villages followed them ; as for those who stayed behind,

they too had to stand the fury of the savage beasts.

Such is, in short, the situation in Pontus ; as for the wrecks that come

back to us from the catastrophe, having no means of subsistence they are

predestined to death by famine, for in spite of the subscriptions we have

organised at Samsoun, individual initiative is powerless to bind up such wounds.

There is urgent necessity to take measures, rapid and efficacious measures, so

that sufficient money may be sent, never mind whence, to construct huts and

shelters, to provide bread, clothes, and other objects of first necessity.

In these conditions you can get an idea of the difficulties I shall have to

get over for the working out and application of your programme, but drawing

my courage from the vitality of the Greek race and from Pontic patriotism, I

shall not be downhearted, and shall do all that is humanly possible, with the help

of God, to accomplish my duty, both pastoral and national.

It would be good and useful for the success of our hallowed end if

European public opinion were enlightened. I beg you to cry aloud," urbi et orbi "these crimes of the Turks, unique in horror, saying that it is impossible to be

governed by them in the future.

It is the duty of our European Allies to punish this criminal people, and

give satisfaction to our national sentiment. And, if reunion with our motherland,

Greece, is not possible, they still have the duty of creating a Pontic State under a

democratic form of Government ; for even if its population has been decimated,

the parents of those perished have set themselves up for the past 50 years inRussian Caucasia, where they wait but the deliverance of their mother-country

in order to come back and repeople the devastated territory of our country.

Then, brothers, let us go forward, protest, weep, knock at the doors of the

high and mighty of this earth, complain, demand, solicit, die if necessary, as our

countrymen died ; for Hellenism has had the great mishap to have obtained,

after much spilling of blood and immense sacrifices, only a part of its national

renaissance. I invoke on you the blessing of our Lord, and may Hegrant the deliverance of our people.

5

5Copy of Letter of His Grace Germanos, Lord Archbishop of Amassia and Samsoun.


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And Mr Constantine Constantinides The President of the PontusDlgation by Memorandum Submitted to the Peace Conference on March 10,

1920, said the historical truth of the genocide of the Euxine has not taken into

consideration by the imperialist forces that dominated the Peace Conference.

We are informed that the Armenian question has been settled without anyreference to the question of Pontus. We feel it, therefore, to be our imperative

duty yet once more to lay before you the claims of Pontus and of the Greek

populations which it comprises from Sinope to Rizeh.

The territory in question embracing the vilayet of Trebizonde (exclusive of the

Sandjak of Lazistam with an almost purely Moslem population) and the Sandjak

of Samsun, Shabbin-Karahissar, Amasia and Sinope, has an area of almost

50,000 square kilometres. Colonized by the Greeks as far back as 7th century,

B.C., it has formed a part of the Greek world throughout the twenty-six ensuingcenturies.

On the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204, it formed the ComnenianEmpire of Trebizonde which only capitulated to the Turks eight years after the

Fall of Constantinople (1461).

The population of Pontus is approximately 1,700,000. Of these 850,000 are

Greeks, including a quarter of a million emigrants in Southern Russia and

Caucasia, who await the liberation of Pontus to return to their homes. The

remainder are grouped in statistics as "Turks," but are in reality Moslems ofdifferent races. Special mention may be made of some 250,000 among them in

the districts of Off and Tonia who are of pure Greek extraction, descendants of

Christians forcibly Islamized 180 years back. These populations have retained

their Greek speech and many of their traditions.

The Greek element is the pivot of such intellectual and economic life as the

country possesses. Recognizing this fact, the Young Turkish Government

attempted to alter the ethnological complexion of Pontus by a systematic

persecution of the Greeks, intensified during the War. As a result of thesepersecutions 150,000 Greeks have been deported from their homes or compelled

to take refuge in Russia during the past five years. In the course of the War

certain events of considerable political significance occurred in Pontus. The

Russian Army occupied Trebizonde on April 18, 1916. On the eve of the

Turkish evacuation of the city the Vali handed over the administration to a

Provisional Greek Government headed by the Metropolitan with the words

"From you we took this country and to you we restore it." This local Greek body

retained the civil government in its hands for nearly two years. It set up mixed

tribunals, organised a gendarmerie recruited from both races, and collectedtaxes. It was recognised by the Russian authorities and the Turkish population,


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as also by the local representatives of the Allied Powers and the United States.

Proof of this is furnished by the documents reproduced in the enclosed

memorandum.

The Provisional Greek Government was successful in maintaining law and orderthroughout this troubled period. The pamphlet enclosed reproduces letters of the

Mufti of Trebizonde and of Vehib Pasha commanding the Third Turkish Army,

which, addressing the Metropolitan, recognize that "From the entrance of the

enemy into Trebizonde to the present day you have succeeded in administering

the country with tact and wisdom, and we have much pleasure in recognizing

this and expressing to you our sincere admiration and warm gratitude."

The aspiration of Pontus to-day is to secure its full independance. The compact

masses of its Greek population are the basis of this aspiration. If, however, more

general considerations make this solution impossible we venture to submit that it

is not too much to ask for an autonomous regime analogous to that which

formerly worked so successfully in the Lebanon, with an European governor,

local self-government and local gendarmerie under European organizers. Such aregime could alone secure to the Greeks of Pontus the elementary conditions of

a decent human existence. Further, such a regime could alone make possible the

repatriation of the Pontus Greeks scattered over Southern Russia and Caucasia

and totalling well over 200,000, including some 60,000 who fled from the

country under stress of persecution during the War. A bitter experience of five

centuries has convinced us of the worthlessness in Turkey of paper reforms and

paper guarantees. European pressure on the Sublime Porte is of little avail to

protect the far away Greek populations of Pontus who have compromised

themselves in Turkish eyes by the assistance given by them to the Allies in theirattempt to reconstitute the Caucasian front on the collapse of Russia (in 1918)


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and by their subsequent demand for autonomy. We will mention only one fact

which gives an idea of the confidence to be placed in Turkish good faith.

Towards the beginning of 1918, the Turkish army advanced to re-occupy the

Trebizonde district. Irregular bands accompanying the Army and organized

under official auspices were given a free hand in burning and pillaging Christianvillages at the very moment that General Vehib Pasha with tragic irony was

writing to the Provisional Greek Government and thanking it for the "noble and

paternal protection extended by it to the Moslem element." When the General

entered Trebizonde he looked at the desolation which reigned in the country

around and he acquiesced in the accomplished facts.

Similar crimes are still being committed in Pontus in spite of the armistice, and

they will continue to be committed unless the Peace Conference takes steps to

remove this distracted country from Turkish administration. The concession of

selfgovernment on the other hand will bring with it the happy results

exemplified by the case of the Lebanon, securing the Christian populations in

their rights and allowing the two races to live peacefully side by side. We beg to

remain, Sir, With the highest consideration.

The Pontians tried to fight back and resist the new politics, so they fled high tothe mountains and organized themselves in small guerrilla groups. By 1921

historical records show that Pontian fighters numbered some 12,000, a force that

was unwisely never deployed by the Greek army. The Greek politics of the time

that failed to focus on the issue and the lost hopes of the establishment of a joint

Ponto-Armenian country allowed Kemal Ataturk to proceed with the final phaseof his plan.

The rise of the Bolsheviks in neighboring Russia deprived the Greek Pontians of

the help they received against the Ottomans. The new Russian regime and

Germany helped Turkey in all ways possible. While the Greek army was


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marching in the wilderness of Anatolia, Kemal kept the Greeks busy with

guerrilla attacks and simultaneously carried on the massacres in Pontus. By the

time of the Asia Minor catastrophe more than 300,000 Pontian Greeks hadalready lost their lives.

The survivors of the extended slaughters migrated to nearby Russian

grounds or were included in the population exchanges that followed the end of

the Greco-Turkish war (1919- 22). The Pontians that moved into Greece brought

with them their surviving culture, language, customs and traditions, and

enriched the social structures of the country by adding their own characteristic

features. The political cohesion of the conquered countries was intended to be

weakened by dividing them into more or less self-contained and hermetically

enclosed zones, as in the four zones of Pontic the ten zones of Kurdistan , the

five zones of Greece; by partitioning their territories to create puppet states.Pontian Greek Genocide recognition refers to the formal acceptance that themassacre and forced deportation of Greek committed by the Ottoman Empire

and by Mustafa Kemal in 19151923 constitutes genocide physical,Cultural,

biological.

The social structure of a nation is vital to its national development.

Therefore the turkish occupant endeavored to bring about changes that

weakened national spiritual resources. The focal point of this attack has been theintelligentsia, because this group largely provides leadership.

For Georges Kokkinos The Greek-Orthodox Community of the OttomanEmpire and Physical Culture :This article focuses on a critical analysis of the


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discourses stressing the advantages inherent to the introduction of physical

culture in the Greek educational system of the school network of the Greek-

orthodox communities situated in the Ottoman empire during the period 1880-

1920. The author studies the structure and social correlations of the discursive

practices, which offer a framework, give a meaning and organize the ideas andthe arguments of the church intelligentsia on the issue of the possible need of

physical culture in education and of the appropriate usage of corporal exercises.

At the same time, the author tries to illustrate the resistance of the ecclesiastical

mechanisms to the introduction of physical culture in the school curriculum

resulting to its selective and progressive introduction, announcing a new era.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was

adopted by the United Nations General Assembly during its 61st session at UNHeadquarters in New York City on 13 September 2007.

While as a General Assembly Declaration it is not a legally binding instrument

under international law, according to a UN press release, it does "represent the

dynamic development of international legal norms and it reflects the

commitment of the UN's member states to move in certain directions"; the UN

describes it as setting "an important standard for the treatment of indigenouspeoples that will undoubtedly be a significant tool towards eliminating human

rights violations against the planet's 370 million indigenous people and assistingthem in combating discrimination and marginalisation.

The Declaration sets out the individual and collective rights of indigenouspeoples, as well as their rights to culture, identity, language, employment,

health, education and other issues. It also "emphasizes the rights of indigenous

peoples to maintain and strengthen their own institutions, cultures and traditions,

and to pursue their development in keeping with their own needs and

aspirations".[1]

It "prohibits discrimination against indigenous peoples", and it

"promotes their full and effective participation in all matters that concern them

and their right to remain distinct and to pursue their own visions of economicand social development". The goal of the Declaration is to encourage countries

to work alongside indigenous peoples to solve global issues, like development,multicultural democracy and decentralization.

[3]According to Article 31, there is

a major emphasis that the indigenous peoples will be able to protect their

cultural heritage and other aspects of their culture and tradition, which is

extremely important in preserving their heritage. The elaboration of this

Declaration had already recommended by the Vienna Declaration andProgramme of Action.

For Lemkin, The Germans sought to obliterate every reminder of former

cultural patterns. In the incorporated areas the local language, place names,

personal names, public signs and inscriptions were supplanted by German


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inscriptions. German was to be the language of the courts, of the schools, of the

government and of the street. In Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg, French was

not even permitted as a language to be studied in primary schools. The function

of the schools was to preserve and strengthen nazism. Attendance at a German

school compulsory through the primary grades and three years of secondaryschool.

Wherever religion represented a vital influence in the national life, the

spiritual power of the Church was undermined by various means. Hand in hand

with the undermining of religious influence went devices for the moral

debasement of national groups. Pornographic publications and movies were

foisted upon the Poles. Alcohol was kept cheap although food became

increasingly dear, and peasants were legally bound to accept spirits for

agricultural produce. Although under Polish law gambling houses had been

prohibited, German authorities not only permitted them to come into existence,but relaxed the otherwise severe curfew law.

The genocidal purpose of destroying or degrading the economic

foundations of national groups was to lower the standards of living and to

sharpen the struggle for existence, that no energies might remain for a cultural or

national life. Jews were immediately deprived of the elemental means ofexistence by expropriation and by forbidding them the right to work.

The genocidal policy was far-sighted as well as immediate in itsobjectives. On the one hand an increase in the birth rate, legitimate or

illegitimate. The most direct and drastic of the techniques of genocide is simply

murder. It may be the slow and scientific murder by mass starvation or the swift

but no less scientific murder by mass extermination in gas chambers, wholesaleexecutions or exposure to disease and exhaustion.

Cultural genocide is a term that lawyer Raphael Lemkin proposed in1933 as a component to genocide. The term was considered in the 2007 United


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Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples juxtaposed next to the

term ethnocide, but it was removed in the final document, replaced with simply

"genocide". The precise definition of "cultural genocide" remains unclear.

Although the term 'ethnocide' has been sometimes used as a replacement for

'cultural genocide', but this usage confuses ethnicity and culture.

As early as 1933, lawyer Raphael Lemkin proposed a cultural component to

genocide, which he called "cultural genocide".[2]

The term has since acquired

rhetorical value as a phrase that is used to protest against the destruction of

cultural heritage. It is also often misused as a catchphrase to condemn any

destruction the user of the phrase disapproves of, without regard for the criterion

of intent to destroy an affected group as such.

Article 7 of a 1994 draft of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of

Indigenous Peoples uses the phrase "cultural genocide" but does not define whatit means.

[7]The complete article reads as follows:

Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not to be

subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide, including prevention of and

redress for:(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their

integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;

(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their

lands, territories or resources;(c) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of

violating or undermining any of their rights;

(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of

life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures;(e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.

This declaration only appeared in a draft. The United Nations Declaration on the

Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the United Nations General

Assembly during its 62nd session at UN Headquarters in New York City on 13

September 2007, but only mentions "genocide", not "cultural genocide",although the article is otherwise unchanged.

The term was used for describing destruction of cultural heritage in connection

with various events: In 2007, a Canadian Member of Parliament criticized the

Ministry of Indian Affairs' destruction of documents regarding the treatment ofFirst Nations members as "cultural genocide.

Dr Ali KILI, President of CRSK , Paris 19 May 2013


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Documents

19 May The Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day and Mustafa Kemal