COURTS OF INDEPENDENCE: AMASEIA 1921

THE EXTERMINATION OF THE RELIGIOUS, INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP OF THE GREEKS OF PONTUS

By ANASTASIA RENTOU

Translated from Greek to English

SALONIKA 2008

THE HISTORICAL LEADUP

The first part of the 20th century has been stigmatised by three major genocides: the Jewish, the Armenian and that of the Greeks of Pontus, Asia Minor and Thrace. However the genocide of the Greeks of Pontus has the following particularities.  As opposed to the genocide of the Jews, the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor and in particular the genocide of Pontus, a vast array of extermination methods were employed.(1)   Also,  the genocide in Pontus became a holocaust.  In other words, this minority knowing full well the cruelty and satanism of the Turk, didn't transpire into an ‘easy' genocide. The Pontus Greeks resisted vigourously, and therefore the genocide eventuated into a holocaust. (2)

The undisputable crime of the Genocide of the Greeks of Pontus took place between the years 1914 and 1923. The extermination of the Christians of Asia Minor was made official with the confidential documents of the Minister of Internal Affairs Talaat towards Vali's (prefectures) of Anatolia, the first victims being the Armenians: "There is to be a complete forfeit of the right in work and in general life of all Armenians living within the Turkish territory. The government has the complete and exclusive responsibility for this issue. Not even the children are to be excluded.".

Even more explicit was another written document which was saved in it's entirety to evidence this. . It was an order which was dispatched on the 14th of May 1914, undersigned by the Minister of Internal Affairs Talaat Pasha and the Director of of the same ministry Hilmi Bey. The objective now, wasn't the Armenians but the Greeks. In the meantime the Neo Turks had the following to say "The Greeks in many regions constitute the majority, which may turn out to be dangerous. They must be forced to abandon their homes and be transported to the prefecture of Erzerum, Erntitzan and elsewhere. . This is imposed for military but also political reasons. If they refuse to vacate their regions, give directives and use all means unbecoming".

In other parts of the document which gave ‘directives' on how the genocide would be accomplished, it was boldly stressed that: "Before they abandon their regions, force the Greeks to sign certificates in which they declare that they are abandoning their residences willingly, and at their own initiative. This is necessary, so that they don't have any political rights at a later date". (3)

Having taken into account therefore the likely repercussions from the International community, the Turks decided that by this means, they could cover up the crimes they were soon to commit..

THE CRIMES DURING THE GENOCIDE PERIOD

From 1914 onwards, there was a declaration for the mobilisation of Christians, which resulted in the "placement of Christians in separate unarmed military units, the "work battalions". The primary aim of these battalions was to do hard labour primarily in the building of roads and other such work, however the work continued only as far as the body and the mind allowed it to" (4). At the same, the death marches to the interior were initiated. The pretext used was that they were for superior military reasons. As a result they were termed the "white deaths". As the Metropolite Germanos Karavaggelis recounts "... after the extermination of the Armenians... the time now came for the Greeks. Since however the news of the deportations soon reached the European and American press... the Turks did not in the beginning dare to proceed with the massive slaughters, but continued with the deportations/white deaths (le massacre blanc). In 1916 the displacements of the Greeks began with its primary aim being death from hunger and hardship". The first phase of the genocide thus ceases with the end of the First World War, however the Kemalist period that began in 1919 and which signalled the arrival of Kemal Ataturk at the port of Samsunda (Samsun) on the 19th of May of the same year,(5) still proves to be harder and more inhumane. The slaughters henceforth become part of everyday routine, and the exiles continued.

In the period 1920-1921, Pontus is ravaged by death and despair to such a degree, the deportations and massacres having intensified to such a degree and with such intensity, that "the entire scheme of ethnic cleansing had openly taken the form of a complete genocide. It's important to note the fact that the crimes committed by the Turks between 1920-21, were admitted by seniors in the Ottoman Administration,who had direct knowledge of exactly what was happening in Pontus."(6)

The following reports paint a harrowing picture as to the dire seriousness during this time period:

"Throughout the entire Spring of 1920 the slaughters had become a daily occurrence".(7)

"On the 30th of April the Kemalists attacked the village Kioseli, in the province of Tokat. The leader of the large gang was Karamistich. This evil man was a convict in the prisons of Tokat, serving a life sentence. Along with 10 other criminals, he had been released 5 months earlier, by the direct command of Kemal Ataturk himself. The Kemalist powers have turned all their criminal towards the defenceless Greek villagers of the region".(8)

"Those unfortunate Greeks who in certain regions had survived the previous orders to leave their towns and villages, now found death in their own homes, where they were now being set upon by raging Kemalists."(9)

"On the15th of June 1921 the main executioner of the Pontian Greeks, Topal Osman invaded the villages of Erpaa, slaughtering the entire unarmed Greek population."(10)

"On that fateful summer, 5 groups of unarmed civilians departed on course to their eventual death, from Trapezounta and Kerasounta. Each group being marched out in long columns made up of 500 civilians each. Their destination was far away Malateia which was located in the interior of Anatolia, a place which they arrived at in December of 1921. Very few survived these death marches. In the same period, over 7000 Pontian Greeks had died of hunger and exposure in Harpout. A document which was sent to the Greek administration in Smyrna on the 30th of December of the same year (1921), made mention that the Labor Batallions had ended; of the 3000 Pontian Greek who were in Harpout, only 30 survived. And in Sebasteia, of the 8000 lives there, approximately 300 survived. A similar situation existed in the whole of Anatolia.".(11)

And while the population of Pontus was being massacred in numerous ways, the anti-Greek sentiment amongst the Turks who were perpetrating this crime was being supported by the religious, the intellectual and also the political leadership. George Kandilaptis-Kanis, a schoolteacher and journalist who lived through the tragic moments of the Genocide, recalls the following: "When the cowardly English and French troups abandoned Anatolia and the Greeks raised the blue and white flag at the bastions of Eski-Sehir and Ousakiou, the barbaric and dishonest Turkish Government began employing its centuries old program. That of the extermination of Anatolian Hellenism. It commenced the Independence Courts in Amaseia with the pretext of destroying the initiators of the Pontus question, but primarily its aim was to destroy the flourishing Greek communities of Pontus, in other words the tradesmen, the lawyers, the doctors, the pharmacists, school teachers, priests and journalists".(12)

to be continued....

References

(1) Tsirkinidis, Genocide p. 125
(2)Tsirkinidis, Genocide p68
(3) Karkaletsis, The Pontian Freedom Fight p.17
(4) Tsirkinidis, Genocide p.88
(5) Karkaletsis, The Pontian Freedom Fight p.25
(6) Karkaletsis, The Pontian Freedom Fight p.26
(7) Karkaletsis, The Pontian Freedom Fight p.27
(8) Karkaletsis, The Pontian Freedom Fight p.27
(9) Karkaletsis, The Pontian Freedom Fight p.28
(10) Karkaletsis, The Pontian Freedom Fight p.30
(11) Karkaletsis, The Pontian Freedom Fight p.32
(12) Kandilaptis, Miscellanies p.38-39