YEREVAN, 24 APRIL, ARMENPRESS. In 1915, the crime perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians was the first genocide of 20th century.  The Armenians worldwide commemorate 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Representatives of different states and international organizations have arrived in Armenia to participate in the events of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. On April 24, Armenians and the high level delegations will visit the Genocide Memorial Tsitsernakaberd to pay tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims.

In the framework of the events of the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, a the second Global Forum entitled "Against the Crime of Genocide" was held in Yerevan, which was attended by participants from around the world, as well as parliamentarians, lawyers, genocide experts and scholars.

What is the Armenian Genocide?

The extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the surrounding regions during the First World War is called the Armenian Genocide.

Those massacres were masterminded and perpetrated by the government of Young Turks in different regions of the Ottoman Empire.

The first international response to the violence resulted in a joint statement by France, Russia and the Great Britain on May 24, 1915, where the Turkish atrocities against the Armenians were defined as “a crime against humanity and civilization”. According to them, Turkish government was responsible for the implementation of the crime.

Why was the Armenian Genocide perpetrated?

When WWI erupted, the government of the Young Turks adopted the policy of Pan-Turkism, hoping to save the remains of the weakened Ottoman Empire. The plan was to create an enormous Ottoman Empire that would spread to China, include all the Turkish speaking nations of the Caucasus and Middle Asia, intending also to turkify all the ethnic minorities of the empire. The Armenian population became the main obstacle standing in the way of the realization of this policy.

The Young Turks used WWI as a suitable opportunity for the implementation of the Armenian genocide, although it was planned in 1911-1912.

How many people died in the Armenian Genocide?

There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire before the First World War. Approximately one and a half million Armenians were killed from 1915-1923. The remaining part was either islamized or exiled.

The mechanism of implementation of the Genocide

A genocide is the organized extermination of a nation aiming to put an end to their collective existence. Thus, the implementation of the genocide requires oriented programming and an internal mechanism, which makes genocide a state crime, as only a state possesses all the resources that can be used to carry out this policy.

The first phase of the extermination of the Armenian population started on April 24, 1915 with the arrest of several hundred Armenian intellectuals and representatives of national elite (mainly in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople) and their subsequent elimination. Hereinafter, Armenians worldwide started to commemorate the Armenian genocide on April 24.

The second phase of the Armenian Genocide was the conscription of about 60,000 Armenian men into the Ottoman army, their disarmament and murder by their Turkish fellow soldiers.

The third phase of the genocide is characterized with the exile of the massacres of women, children, and elderly people to the desert of Syria. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered by Turkish soldiers, police officers, Kurdish bandits during the deportation. The others died of epidemic diseases. Thousands of women and children were subjected to violence. Tens of thousands were forcibly islamized.

The last phase is the universal and absolute denial of the Turkish government of the mass deportations and genocide carried out against Armenians in their homeland. Despite the ongoing process of international condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey fights against recognition by all means, including distortion of history, means of propaganda, lobbying activities and other measures.

The term genocide was firstly used by the Polish lawyer of Jewish origin Raphael Lemkin. His family became the victims of the Holocaust, and he was trying to use this term to describe and define Nazist systematic policy of killings and violence, as well as the hostilities committed against the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

The United Nations adopted “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” on December 9, 1948 which defines Genocide as an international crime and the countries which signed the document are obliged to prevent and punish the perpetrators of the genocide.

International recognition

The Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman government has been substantiated, recognized and confirmed by eyewitness reports, laws, resolutions and by the decisions of numerous states and international organizations. Numerous organizations such the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, several UN commissions, World Union of Churches, MERCOSUR Parliament admitted the Armenian Genocide. Many countries have recognized the Armenian Genocide, Uruguay was the first country that officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in 1965.  The Armenian massacres were officially criticized and recognized as Genocide based on international law by the following countries: France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus, Lebanon, Uruguay, Argentine (2 laws, 5 resolutions), Venezuela, Chile, Canada, Vatican, Australia, Austria, Luxembourg, and 44 states of the US.