Who blames victims?

Submitted by Concerned Buddhist (Lithuania), Sep 24, 2007 at 03:09

I do not blame any victims, it is Turks who are blaming, I only state what they say.

First of all I absolutely do not support any Turkish claims that Armenians rebelled or committed treason to the Ottoman empire before the Genocide began. Armenian started to resist only after Genocide had already begun and only in some places as Musa Dag or Van. Turks used as pretext some raids of Armenian guerillas from the Russian territory in late 1914 - early 1915, however it cannot be counted as serious argument, since 1) these Armenian guerillas were the most part Russian and not Ottoman Armenians and attacked from Russian territory 2) Turkish response was absolutely disproportional to any danger, imaginable or real, that any Armenian armed groups could pose to the Ottoman Empire. Turks killed or expelled Armenians not only from the front zone, but from almost all the territory of Anatolia. So that there are absolutely no excuse for Turkish actions.

It is understandable that Armenian volonteers who came with the Russian army to Eastern Anatolia during 1916-1918(i.e. when the Genocide was already mostly completed) or those who took the Kars region during 1919-1920 treated local Muslim populations very badly. However this cannot be called protection of Armenians from genocide since there were practically no or little Armenians in those areas. This Muslim Turkish or Kurdish people who lived in those areas and were killed by Armenian volunteers could also be counted as of victims. Of course some of them may have participated in the Armenian Genocide but others certainly not. Again, seeing from perspective of that time the wrath of Armenians irregulars and their revenge seems quite justified, however some people nowadays could have other opinion.

And since Turkish government tries to suppress all the information about Armenian Genocide and sufferings of Armenian people, most of Turks do not know nothing about it and refuse to believe, and every time when you try to speak to Turks about the Genocide they would shout back "It is Armenians who were killing us!" and start to count horrors about atrocities committed by Armenians on Turks. I heard myself such talks several times.

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