Armenian Genocide : The ArmenianGenocide, And The Armenian Genocide

Between the years of 1915 and 1918 the Ottoman Empire, under the Young Turks began a deliberate program of removing and exterminating the Armenian population; a population already dismantled through previous massacres. The Armenians were a minority in both population and religion. Because most Armenians were Christians, they were made an easy scapegoat in an empire that was mostly Islamic. With the world’s eyes on the First World War, the Armenian Genocide went mostly unnoticed and there were no punishments such as ones received by Germany after the Holocaust. The United States has deliberately avoided the recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in order to maintain an ally in the Middle East and to avoid American genocidal policies,

The Armenian massacres of the 1890 's are an important marker in the history of humanitarian aid by the United States. Before this point, American humanitarian aid had been up to small committee efforts thrown together for an individual international crisis. During the 1890 's humanitarian reformers became more organized and elected officials began to look at the role the United States federal government could play in international humanitarian aid. (Wilson 27) At this time Protestant missionaries and Armenian nationals joined forces with former abolitionists, woman suffragists, and newspapermen to bring the condition of the Armenians to the attention of the citizens of the United States.

The Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against its minority Armenian population from 1915-1917 left an estimated 1.5 million dead and to date, not one individual has been tried for these egregious crimes. The mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in World War I and Jews by the Nazis in World War II shocked the conscience of the international community and led to the creation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), in order to hold the perpetrators of crimes of this magnitude accountable. In its preamble, the UN charter sets the objective to "establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained". The genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire and Nazis made it clear that an international standard must be set in order to protect the rights of individuals. The UN has attempted to establish international law with the creation of the CPPCG and other resolutions, however, these resolutions are simply words on paper unless they are properly enforced. In this essay I will be examining whether the United Nations have been successful in its enforcement international law, specifically the CPPCG.

The Armenian Genocide also referred as the Armenian Holocaust was a horrific act done by the Turkish Ottoman government to exterminate and kill many Armenians. Millions of Armenians lost their lives due to this event and Turkey refutes that any event ever happened or occurred. The start of the genocide took place in April 24 1915 where the ottoman empire took many Armenian leaders to eventually murder them. The event was carried out during and after World War 1. The genocide was implemented in two phases which where the wholesale killing of the male population, then the death marches of the children and women leading to starvation because their food and water were deprived as well as their dignity since they raped and robbed them. There were

Mass extermination and deportation of Western population of Armenia, Cilicia and other provinces of the Ottoman Empire carried out by the ruling circles of Turkey in 1915-1923. The policy of genocide against Armenians was due to several factors. The leading role among them was the ideology

The events that happened during the Armenian genocide was very disturbing as to why and how it happened. For the Armenians it was mainly the women and kids who were forced to be converted to islam. Another measure of the genocidal process is deleting all traces of the population who have been massacred or driven away by such deportations. Women were raped and sold in slave

The Holocaust is one of the most well known events in history. It had a great affect on the Jewish population and the Zionist movement. The Holocaust is very similar to the Turkish massacre of the Armenians during World War I. Alike the Holocaust, it also had a large effect on the Armenian population. Both of these are horrific events in history because of the mass numbers that were killed. The Holocaust, which had a great effect on the Jewish population, is comparable on a much larger scale to the Massacre of the Armenians in Turkey during World War 1 because of the incredibly large numbers of lives lost during the specific massacres.

There were many reasons discussed for why the Armenian massacre should be called a genocide or not. The first definition of Genocide adopted by the United Nations stated “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious groups as such (De Waal 2015).” Many believed the meaning of the words “as such” is not clear and some deny that the massacre was “committed with intent”- an argument made frequently in Turkey (De Waal 2015). Even though many alleged perpetrators believe that the massacre was not committed with intent, the Ottoman Empire did attempt to wipe out an entire ethical group. The Armenians were either deported or killed and many women were either beaten or raped. The Armenian diaspora saw the word genocide as the perfect word to describe what happened to their parents and grandparents. They Armenian Diaspora began referring the Meds Yeghern as “the Armenian Genocide”, which sparked a political movement. This political movement was established in 1965 which marked the 50th anniversary of the massacre and the Armenian diaspora was out to seek

The Armenian Genocide is the name given to the events of 1915-1923 in the Ottoman Empire, which was renamed Turkey after its founding father, Mustafa Ataturk. The Muslim majority destroyed the Armenians' homes, churches, and livelihoods in a continuous murderous event that took its course over 8 years. An estimated 1 million to 1.5 million Armenians died in this Genocide, and other ethnicities died as well including Greeks and Azerbaijanis who happened to be living in Armenian neighborhoods. (University of Michigan) The victims were sometimes forced to walk on endless marches that were intended to move the entire population out of the country and east to the mountains. Any Armenians who died on the march were left on the road to rot. The Armenian Genocide was first recognized by the Russian Empire in 1915, who saw what was happening before Europe did. The leaders of the Ottoman Empire, including Ataturk, were creating a modern Turkey for Turks, at the expense of all the minorities of the Ottoman Empire, and without mercy for any who would resist.

The war between the Young Turks and the Armenians did not solve any problems, but rather just further deepened tensions between countries. It started off as a war for power because the Armenians demanded equal rights with the Turks in the government of the Ottoman Empire. However, due to the differing religions between the two groups, the Armenians were denied of their request as they were the minority. This lead the Turks to form a committee, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), to reach a compromise with the Armenians so they could all live together in peace. However, out of fear that they would take over, the Young Turks completely disregarded this plan and decided to slaughter them by the thousands because they posed a slight threat. This increased tensions between opposing races and opposing countries since their Allies, such as Germany, would also be expected to take the side of the Turks and deny the brutality of the events that took place.

There are more than one ways that the holocaust is very similar to the Genocide in Armenia. Like Hitler, The Turkish government had devised and set into motion a plan to exterminate more than one million of turkeys Armenians. Like the holocaust in Germany, the genocide in Armenia had a lot to do with religion and in almost a super similar situation to the holocaust, it all started to go bad when a group called the "young Turks" decided they wanted all the power and wanted any religion but theirs out of turkey. By April of 1915 hundreds were arrested and thousands were taken from their homes and put on death marches without food and water through the desert and just like in the holocaust, people were also tortured and killed in very cruel manors.

From 1915 to 1918, the Turkish leaders of the Ottoman Empire carried out the killings of 1.5 million Armenians living there at the time. Over the course of those terrible 3 years, innocent people were murdered with death marches, execution, drowning, burning and other inhumane ways. Turkey has refused to take blame, and even denied the genocide’s existence and occurrence. There has been much dispute about whether or not countries outside of Armenia and Turkey should recognize these mass killings of Armenians in 1915-16 as a genocide or something else. The Ottoman Empire was multinational, but had always favored Muslims to Jews and Christians, so when World War I started and a substantial group of Christian Armenians were still in Turkey and

The war allowed the Turks to impose their wrath and destruction on the Armenians. The first phase began with the war afflicted provinces; the Turks took the opportunity to seize properties and personal belongings of the remaining Armenians. Whatever valuables they had were forcibly taken from them. They had no means of support and were subjugated under the leadership of the Turks. They were removed and transported by trains or had to walk miles and miles by foot to the Mesopotamian desert. This initial step was the start of the mass execution of the innocent Armenians in an isolated place at the hands of the Empire.

The Armenian genocide has several main causes: European meddling in Ottoman internal affairs, nationalism, economic jealousy, and Armenian involvement in the Russian war effort. Though, a lot of the causes are interrelated. For example, nationalism and European meddling go hand in hand. What exactly was the Armenian genocide? Well, the Armenian genocide was a state orchestrated machine of mass-murder and rape of the Armenian people, and several other ethnic groups, of the Ottoman Empire 1915-1923. The Armenians were one of many ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire, and they had lived in eastern Asia Minor for around three thousand years prior to the atrocity .

“The great massacres of 1894–1896, followed by others in 1909–1912, constituted a profound shock to the Armenian community, which was stripped of its land, ancestry, and culture” (“Armenian Genocide”).