gunduz-aktan-kitap-soyledikleri-ve-yazdiklari

SÖYLEDİKLERİ VE YAZDIKLARI
conflict, those regions gained independence with foreign
intervention and assistance. In the 1880s, the Hinchags
announced, as the goal of their armed struggle, that they
established an (imaginary) Armenia in a region called Vilayat-ı Sitte
that is the six provinces in eastern Anatolia namely Erzurum, Van,
Elazığ, Diyarbakır, Bitlis and Sivas. According to today’s
administrative division that region covered also the provinces now
called Erzincan, Ağrı, Muş, Siirt, Hakkari, Bingöl, Malatya, Mardin,
Amasya, Tokat, Giresun, Ordu and Trabzon.
Armenians did not prove successful in that struggle. Therefore,
they may compare their lot with that of the luckier Christian
peoples of the Balkans and feel unfortunate or injured. However, in
order to defend the genocide thesis they cannot simply claim that
the Turks subjected them to ‘death marches’ out of their cruelty,
that they were too innocent even to nourish political aspirations,
not to mention armed struggle, and that, in view of the above, what
they were subjected to was genocide by Turks in the sense of
Article 2 of the Convention.
Historical research clearly shows, on the other hand, that the
Armenians constituted a political group par excellence that
engaged in armed political activities for independence. Opting for
relocation in the course of a defensive struggle against a local
political group that joined hands with the enemy, i.e., Russian
occupiers, and resorted to arms as well as systematic terrorist
actions amounting to grave breaches of the law of war, does not
constitute genocide in accordance with the definition of that crime.
Further, the crimes committed, if any, in the course of this type of
struggle would not amount to genocide either.
Motive
A political group entertaining political aspirations and pursuing
activities to serve such purposes may also be a national, racial,
religious or ethnic group. Some political groups too, as in the case
of the Armenians, may well be described, on the basis of some
other characteristics they have, as an ethnic or religious group or
simply ‘other” group. However, being a political group indicates
that the incidents in which group gets involved stem from political
reasons, first and foremost.
Gündüz Aktan
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