Monday, August 01, 2016

August 1, 2016 News

The Tehcir Law brought some measures regarding the property of the deportees. Yet, in September, a new law was proposed. It was the “Abandoned Properties” Law (Law Concerning Property, Dept's and Assets Left Behind Deported Persons, also referred as the "Temporary Law on Expropriation and Confiscation"), the Ottoman government took possession of all "abandoned" Armenian goods and properties. Ottoman parliamentary representative Ahmed Riza protested this legislation. Ahmed Riza said the following words: “…It is unlawful to designate the Armenian assets as "abandoned goods" for the Armenians, the proprietors, did not abandon their properties voluntarily; they were forcibly, compulsorily removed from their domiciles and exiled. Now the government through its efforts is selling their goods ... If we are a constitutional regime functioning in accordance with constitutional law we can't do this. This is atrocious. Grab my arm, eject me from my village, then sell my goods and properties, such a thing can never be permissible. Neither the conscience of the Ottomans nor the law can allow it…” On September 13, 1915, the Ottoman parliament passed the “Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation,” stating that all property, including land, livestock, and homes belonging to Armenians, was to be confiscated by the authorities. International Aid came to help the Armenian victims of abuse, murder, and genocide. The American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief (ACASR, also known as "Near East Relief"), established in 1915 just after the deportations began, was a charitable organization established to relieve the suffering of the peoples of the Near East. The organization was championed by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Morgenthau's dispatches on the mass slaughter of Armenians galvanized much support for the organization. In its first year, the ACRNE cared for 132,000 Armenian orphans from Tiflis,Yerevan, Constantinople, Sivas, Beirut, Damascus, and Jerusalem. A relief organization for refugees in the Middle East helped donate over $102 million (budget $117,000,000) [1930 value of dollar] to Armenians both during and after the war. Between 1915 and 1930, ACRNE distributed humanitarian relief to locations across a wide geographical range, eventually spending over ten times its original estimate and helping around 2,000,000 refugees.




The Committee of Union and Progress founded the "Special Organization" (Turkish: Teşkilat-i Mahsusa) that participated in the destruction of the Ottoman Armenian community. This organization adopted its name in 1913 and functioned like a Special Forces outfit, and it has been compared by some scholars to the Nazi Einsatzgruppen. By 1914, the Ottoman government influenced the declaration that the Special Organization was to take by releasing criminals from central prisons to be the central elements of this newly formed Special Organization. According to the Mazhar, commissions attached to the tribunal as soon as November 1914, 124 criminals were released from Pimian prison. Little by little from the end of 1914 to the beginning of 1915, hundreds then thousands of prisoners were freed to form the members of this organization. Later, they were charged to escort the convoys of Armenians deportees. Vehib Pasha, commander of the Ottoman Third Army, called those members of the Special Organization, the “butchers of the human species.” Eitan Belkind was a Nili member who infiltrated the Ottoman army as an official. He was assigned to the headquarters of Kamal Pasha. He claims to have witnessed the burning of 5,000 Armenians.  Lt. Hasan Maruf of the Ottoman army described how a population of a village were taken all together and then burned. The Commander of the Third Army Vehib’s 12 page affidavit, which was dated on December 5, 1918. It was presented in the  Trabzon trial series (29 March 1919) included in the Key Indictment, reporting such a mass burning of the population of an entire village near Muş: "The shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated in the various camps was to burn them." Further, it was reported that "Turkish prisoners who had apparently witnessed some of these scenes were horrified and maddened at remembering the sight. They told the Russians that the stench of the burning human flesh permeated the air for many days after.” Vahakn Dadrian wrote that 80,000 Armenians in 90 villages across the Muş plain were burned in "stables and haylofts." Many Armenians were drowned too. Trabzon was the main city in the Trabzon province.  Oscar S. Heizer, the American consul at Trabzon, reported: "This plan did not suit Nail Bey ... Many of the children were loaded into boats and taken out to sea and thrown overboard." Hafiz Mehmet, a Turkish deputy serving Trabzon, testified during a 21 December 1918 parliamentary session of the Chamber of Deputies that "the district's governor loaded the Armenians into barges and had them thrown overboard." The Italian consul of Trabzon in 1915,Giacomo Gorrini, writes: "I saw thousands of innocent women and children placed on boats which were capsized in the Black Sea” Vahakn Dadrian places the number of Armenians killed in the Trabzon province by drowning at 50,000. The Trabzon trials reported Armenians having been drowned in the Black Sea; according to a testimony, women and children were loaded on boats in "Değirmendere" to be drowned in the sea. Hoffman Philip, the American chargé d'affaires at Constantinople, wrote: "Boat loads sent from Zor down the river arrived at Ana, one thirty miles away, with three fifths of passengers missing.” According to Robert Fisk, 900 Armenian women were drowned in Bitlis, while in Erzincan, the corpses in the Euphrates resulted in a change of course of the river for a few hundred meters. Dadrian also wrote that "countless" Armenians were drowned in the Euphrates and its tributaries. Innocent Armenians experienced toxic gas, typhoid inoculation involuntarily and children were involuntarily injected with morphine.


There were many events during the aftermath of the Armenian genocide. On the night of November 2-3, 1918, with the aid of Ahmed Izzet Pasha, the Three Pashas (which include Mehmed Talaat Pasha and Ismail Enver, the main perpetrators of the Genocide) fled the Ottoman Empire. In 1919, after the Murdros Armistice, Sultan Mehmed VI was ordered to organize courts-martial by the Allied administration in charge of Constantinople to try members of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)  (Turkish: "Ittihat Terakki") for taking the Ottoman Empire into World War I. By January 1919, a report to Sultan Mehmed VI accused over 130 suspects, most of whom were high officials. Sultan Mehmet VI and Grand Vizier Damat Ferid Pasha, as representatives of government of the Ottoman Empire during the Second Constitutional Era, were summoned to the Paris Peace Conference by the U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing. On July 11, 1919, Damat Ferid Pasha officially confessed to massacres against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was a key figure and initiator of the war crime trials held directly after World War I to condemn to death the chief perpetrators of the Genocide. The military court found that it was the will of the CUP to eliminate Armenians physically via its Special Organization. That is evil. After the pronouncement, the three Pashas were sentenced to death in absentia at the trials in Constantinople. The courts-martial officially disbanded the CUP and confiscated its assets and the assets of those found guilty. The courts-martial were dismissed in August 1920 for their lack of transparency, according to then High Commissioner and Admiral Sir John de Robeck,  and some of the accused were transported to Malta for further interrogation, only to be released afterwards in an exchange of POWs. Two of the three Pashas were later assassinated by Armenian vigilantes during Operation Nemesis.



The Culture of Dallas is very diverse and beautiful. For centuries, Dallas has not only influenced Texas, but places across America and throughout the world. Dallas is a city with cultural influences from the American West and from the South. Dallas’ culture is also diversified too.African Americans have a long history in Dallas too. Southern areas of Dallas, especially Pleasant Grove is predominantly African American. The eastern parts of the city are mostly white and the northwestern portion of the city is home to a fairly equal mix of black people and Latinos. Many Hispanic people have a large culture in Dallas. Southwestern areas of the city like Oak Cliff are predominantly or completely Hispanic.  There are many barbecues, authentic Mexican, and Tex-Mex cuisine in Dallas. The Dallas area in general is home to a large amount of restaurants featuring cuisine from all over the world. There are also found localized populations of Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Thai, Indian, German, Middle Eastern, Polish, Russian, and Jewish people. There is the Greek Food Festival of Dallas as well.  Many Asian communities also reside in the suburbs like in Plano, Irving, Carrolton, and Richardson. There is a large art scene in Dallas, Texas too. The Arts District in downtown has many venues like the Dallas Museum of Art, the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center. In 2009, the AT&T Performing Arts Center was completed, which includes the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, the Annette Strauss Artists Square, and the Elaine D. and Charles A. Sammons Park. Construction of the City Performance Hall was scheduled for completion in September 2012. The Arts District is also home to Dallas Independent School District's Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. The Majestic Theatre is a historic theater in the City Center District that has been restored for use as a performing arts facility. As for religion, there is a largest Protestant Christian influence in Dallas as Dallas is in the Bible belt filled with Methodists, Baptists, etc. Also, there is a significant amount of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Mormon, Muslim, Hindu, and other religious groups in Dallas too. Since 1886, there is the annual State Fair of Texas held in Dallas. There are Juneteenth festivities in Dallas. Cinco de Mayo celebrations are well known in Dallas including St. Patrick Day parades in Irish communities (especially along east Dallas’ Lower Greenville Avenue).


Cars of the future will deal with better technology than previous years. Many concept cars are part of the wave of new cars. One futuristic care is called the Alex e-roadster electric car. It will be built in Dunleer Co. Louth, Ireland. It is a very lightweight design with chassis being designed by a specialist composite chassis designer in Denmark. The body panels will also be made from advanced composites the manufactures say. The care will be driven by two axial flux motors driving the rear wheels. The motors will be powered by advanced Lithium-ion battery modules stored in a compartment underneath the floor of the car. Top speed will be in the range 130-135kph. Expected range is 300 km. It will also feature a quirky combined roof and doors canopy to allow easy entry and exit from the car. The makers say that it saves a lot of weight by combining both doors with the roof. A prototype is expected to be available in early 2017 with the first car going on sale in late 2017.There is the Hyundai Portico that is a full size crossover SUV larger than the Santa Fe and Veracruz. It will share the Sonata platform. In terms of technology, our technology went from the steam engine, to internal combustion, jet propulsion, and so forth. Just 10 years ago, cars had built in Bluetooth, navigation, and parking sensors. Today, even affordable cars have such devices on them. Some predict autonomous driving will be more common by 2026.

By Timothy

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