Bethnahrin National Council calls on international community to stop new genocides

BETH NAHRIN —The Presidential Body of the Bethnahrin National Council (Mawtbo Umthoyo D’Bethnahrin, MUB) issued a statement on the 109^th anniversary of the Sayfo Genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against the Christian peoples in Turkey.

“During the past years, the government of Society of Union and Progress of the Ottoman state has carried out the genocide against Christian peoples, on 24 April, 1915. Starting from 1910, officials of Society of Union and Progress aimed at completely displace Christian peoples from Beth Nahran (Mesopotamia) and Anatolia, based on the Turkish-Islamic ideology and strategy. They implemented the plan they had prepared step by step,” read the statement.

The MUB added that during this genocide, in which the Ottoman Army, Hamidian troops, gangs of robbers took part, almost one and a half million Armenians were killed, more than half a million Syriacs (Aramean-Chaldean-Assyrian).

Between 1912 1nd 1920, hundreds of thousands of Pontic-Greek people were slaughtered.

“The Sayfo Genocide goal was to annihilate Christians in the Middle East and control all sources of wealth, thus establishing a unified Turkish nationalism. Since the Turkish republic is based on the heritage of the Ottoman state and the mentality of Society of Union and Progress, it has followed a policy aimed at destroying, denying and annihilating ethnic, religious and sectarian identities,” the MUB stated.

The MUB Presidential Body pointed out that the attempt to unite the heritage and culture of various peoples in Beth Nahrin and Anatolia, through repression and racist methods, was the main method of all Turkish governments. For this reason, the Turkish Republic lagged behind contemporary developments and the process of democratic transformation, and its economic resources were consumed to achieve racist goals.

The MUB pointed out that the fascist government of the Justice and Development Party and the Nationalist Movement Party continues to implement policy of extermination in every aspect of life, and against all different identities. Since 2015, the fascist government has been fighting in a regional war inside and outside Turkey, with a genocidal mentality, and it is also committing crimes against humanity against peoples, through the occupation forces that it deployed from Libya to Nagorno-Karabakh. It is also destroying the living resources of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of the Region of North and East Syria, and forcing people migration and displacement.

The MUB declared that the government of the Justice and Development Party and the Nationalist Movement party, based on Turkish and Islamic ideology, declared that all structures different from it are its enemies, and it involved the whole society in poverty and hunger, using religious beliefs and chauvinistic feelings for their own interests. Despite the passage of 109 years since the Sayfo Genocide, this mentality continues to invade and threaten humanity with the aim of destroying peoples.

The MUB Presidential Body stressed that although Turkey denies the 1915 Genocide with lies and prohibitions, it cannot hide this historical fact from world public opinion.

“The people who survived the Sayfo Genocide cannot forget their bleeding wounds and pain and renounce their issue. The struggle will continue until the governments of Turkey accept the Genocide and justice is achieved,” the MUB continued.

On 9^th centenary, the MUB respectfully commemorated martyrs of the Genocide of the Armenian, Syriac and Pontik-Greek people, and called on everyone to act against the new genocides.