Did Turkey commit genocide to the Armenians?
The Young Turks in 1915 had very nationalistic ideas in spreading the Ottoman Empire and creating a Pan Turkic nation by removing the Armenians, taking their belongings and land. While the rest of the WORLD was busy with WWI, they achieved what they set out to do by first executing any of the men that were of any importance in the community. These included lawyers, judges, doctors - the educated and somewhat powerful. Once the powerful were gone, it was time for the males in the family to be eliminated. This was done once again either by quick execution OR immediate "draft" into the Turkish army whereby they were marched to death camps and executed by the thousands, not even bothering to march them for at least a day's distance. Word came back that these executions were taking place and some areas tried resistance. In the meantime, with most of the men (by men, I am referring to boys of the age of 13 and up) gone, executed in front of their families, or killed in march - the women, children and elderly were told they had less than an hour to pack their belongings to "meet" their husbands, fathers, brothers, etc. Of course if you are told you have to leave immediately as a woman with young children or you will be executed OR you can join your husband, etc - they basically took the latter choice, not knowing that their husbands were already dead and they would be marched in exactly the opposite direction, into the Syrian desert. After several weeks of walking with literally the clothes on their back and no food, they began dying of starvation and disease. The Euphrates River along their death march was littered with bodies floating down - children were left orphaned or died of starvation, too. The young turks released hundreds of hardened criminals from their jails in return for enlistment into their gendarme regime. These criminals were enlisted into accompanying the women, children and elderly into the desert and given free reign to do as they pleased with them as long as they would not be able to come back to their goods, their property or their homeland. Armenia was reduced to approximately 20% of her original size and over 1.5 million Armenians were killed. There is not a single Armenian family that was not affected by the genocide in one way or another. Armenia was an ancient country that dates back over 8,000 years. Armenia even has Karahounge, the Armenian Stonehenge that outdates the English Stonehenge by over 5,000 years. Her original borders were the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Because of Armenia's location in the middle of Asia and Europe it has always been in the middle of conflict, but it wasn't until the Ottoman Turks in 1915 that most Armenian lives were gone and her borders shrunk by over 80%. To this day, the Turkish people vehemently deny there was ever a genocide. Not a single reparation has ever been made to any Armenian who lost their valuables, their homes, their families. Not only are Turks not allowed to admit the genocide but if any of them ever even questions the denial, they would be arrested by the Turkish government and charged with being non-Nationalistic and for the past almost 100 years their denial has been responsible for genocide being repeated in several other cultures throughout the world. As a matter of fact, the denial by the Turks is so vehement and their hatred of Armenians is so vehement that when Hrant Dink (a famous Armenian journalist & Armenian newspaper publisher who lived in present day Turkey)was assassinated in broad daylight, the shooter was hailed as a hero!
