THE CHRONIC CONDITION OF ARMENIA AND KURDISTAN.
Many statements in regard to the state of affairs in Eastern Turkey are
criticised as being too sweeping and general, and the inference is drawn
that they are exaggerations, not based on exact knowledge of the facts.
This chapter will, therefore, contain nothing but definite incidents and
figures, names and places also being added regardless of consequences.
This information is furnished by a trustworthy authority on the ground,
and has already been published in _The Independent_, of New York,
January 17, 1895, from which I quote verbatim. It shows the usual course
of things in times of so-called peace between Kurds and their Christian
slaves, and indicates to what sort of a life these Armenian, Jacobite,
and Nestorian Christians are condemned when no massacre is in hand. From
my own residence and travels in Armenia, I know that the incidents
related would apply to hundreds of villages with simply a change of
name.
“_A Partial List of Exactions made upon the Village of Mansurieh of
Bohtan_ (Kaimakamlik of Jezireh) by the government, and by Mustapha
Pasha, a Kurdish Kocher, or nomad chief, in 1893:
SUMMARY.
1. Government Exaction Excess of official 3,000 ps.[9]
demand
„ „ Amount of double tax 4,000
„ „ Produce taken by 2,000 9,000 ps.
gendarmes
—————
2. Exaction by M. Pasha. Excess of tithe 1,500
revenue
Damage to crops 2,000 3,500
————— —————
Total excess taken from village for 1893 12,500
Total of legitimate taxes on village for 14,000
the year
The village complained to the government of Mustapha Pasha’s exactions,
but no redress was given by the government, nor anything done to
Mustapha Pasha, who, when he learned of their having made complaint,
sent droves of sheep to devour the crops that remained, viz., five
pieces of ground sown and bearing cotton, millet, flaxseed, etc., valued
at 2000 piasters.”
“_Partial List of Exaction by Aghas of Shernakh_ (one day north of
Jezireh), from Hassana of Bohtan, during years 1891–’93. Hassana has
sixty houses:
1893.
Use of 30 men to carry flour for Mohammed Agha, 2 days 150 ps.
For Mohammed Agha, cash 10 liras 1,000
For Mohammed Agha, 15 pieces of cloth 150
For Taher Agha, cash 14 liras 1,400
For Taher Agha, taken from village priest, cash 75 ps.,
saddle 75 ps., watch 200 ps. 350
For Sahdoon Agha, cash 2 liras 200
For Mohammed 120
For Khorsheed 57
For Mohammed Agha, harvest, 500 men at 3 ps. 1,500
For Mohammed Agha, repair of his roads, 65 men, 3 days 487
For Mohammed Agha, repair of his roads, 50 men, 3 days 375
For Mohammed Agha, preparation of boiled wheat for winter,
450 men and 14 animals 1,160
For Mohammed Agha, building house in Dader, 150 men 375
For Mohammed Agha, 2000 ceiling sticks, 10 posts 554
For Mohammed Agha, 4 large trees for rafters, at 50 ps. 200
—————
Total for 1893 8,078 ps.
The above were noted in a book at the time of the occurrence by a
village priest, as being seen by him personally, and do not give the
great part of the exactions of the Shernakh Kurds, which he did not see.
One item additional to above: all the cotton of Mohammed Agha of
Shernakh is, by the villagers, beaten, spun, twisted, woven, and
returned as cloth (involving many days’ labor and two days’ journey),
and any weight lost in the making up the amount must be made good.
This oppression is increasing from year to year. The above priest noted
for years 1880–’82, taken by Aghas—cash, 4141 ps.; 90 animals used, 450
ps.; 314 men used, 785 ps. Total for three years, 5376, as over against
10,973 ps. for three years, 1891–’93.”
“Testimony given in writing, by a Christian of the District of Berwer,
in reference to the oppression of Christians in that district by the
Kurds, of which he himself was an eye-witness, the examples given being
confined to three small villages and of recent occurrence. He gives the
names of places and of the parties concerned, both Kurds and Christians.
We summarize them.
_Murders._—Eight men mentioned by name, others generalized.
_Robbery._—Cash, 9 liras; again 10 liras; again 15 liras; smaller sums
being taken continually.
Mohammed Beg, of Berwer, and his relatives responsible in greater part
for the above; also for robbing of two houses in Ina D’Noony.
For generations these Christians have sown the fields of these Kurds,
harvested them, done their threshing, irrigated their fields, cut and
brought in the grass as fodder for the sheep for use during the winter,
together with much other labor, and all without recompense, they finding
themselves.
(These things are accompanied, of course, with cursings and beatings.)”
“A number of Christian villages lying farther back in the mountains are
even more severely oppressed. The people are literally bought and sold
as slaves. In other districts the buying and selling of Christians by
Kurds is common.”
“Village of Shakh (five hours from Jezireh); like Mansurieh deserted for
months by reason of extortion by tax collectors. Many of the people
lived during the winter in caves in the mountains.”
“The writer was in Nahrwan when the Kaimakam of Jezireh came, several
weeks after a murder, to examine into it. The examination was rendered
so oppressive to the Christians that the people were glad to declare
that nothing had happened, in order to escape any further inquisition.
Even the old mother of the murdered man was frightened until she
declared that she did not know of any such occurrence, and had no
complaints to make against anybody.”
“Kannybalaver—Kaimakamlik of Amadia. During the years 1893–’94 this
village was raided several times by the Gugier and Sendier Kurds of the
Kaimakamlik of Jezireh. They took one hundred head of animals, field
tools, household utensils, beds, wool and yarn, gall-nuts—all of their
fall gathering,—and dry goods which had been brought in to sell. At
their last visit everything movable was carried off, and the people
deserted the village. A leading man of the village, Gegoo by name, was
seized by the Kurds, carried for several miles, and was then murdered in
cold blood. There were about one hundred Kurds in the band led by Ahrno,
brother of Hassu of Ukrul and Kerruvanu. The chief men of their village
are Sherriffu and Hassu, who would be responsible for such a raid.”
“In the city of Mosul, where there is a Vali, Christians are robbed and
killed openly. Three cases are given. Last year a young man, of the
Protestant community, of high standing in the city as a merchant, was
standing before his door when two young Kurds of notorious character
came along, and one of them, without the slightest provocation, at the
time or previously, from mere wantonness, stabbed him, and would have
killed him had he not been restrained. The family of the man, though one
of the most influential families among the Christians of the city, did
not dare to make accusation against him, knowing that the only result
would be more bloodshed.”
“An old missionary who has been familiar with the region from Bohtan to
Amadia for years, says these oppressions are increasing, and unless
something is done speedily, all the Christian villages of these various
districts will soon fall into the hands of the Kurds just as they have
in Zabur.”
“These instances of oppression given are but a few of the many which
might be given. Indeed it is not these greater occurrences, as the big
raids and murders, which are the most serious to the Christian. It is
the daily constant exactions and oppressions which are crushing the life
out of them.”
A whole chapter might well be devoted to the oppression by government
officials in assessing and collecting taxes. This evil is general,
affecting all Turkey. A brief summary of these abuses as generally
practised will be given. In view of the poverty-stricken condition of
the land, even the legitimate taxes are an exceedingly heavy burden on
Moslem and Christian alike, but the burden is greatly increased by the
methods here classified:
SUMMARY OF ABUSES.
“I. _Unjust and corrupt assessments._
1. Villagers are compelled to give assessors presents of money to
prevent them from over estimating the taxable persons and property.
2. Assessors, to secure additional bribes, signify their willingness to
make an underestimate. This, in turn, affords opportunity for blackmail,
which is used by succeeding officials.”
“II. _Injustice and severity in collecting._
1. The collectors, like the assessors, have ways of extorting presents
and bribes from the people.
2. The collectors, as a rule, go to the villages on Sunday, as on that
day they find the people in the village. They frequently interrupt the
Christian services, and show disrespect to their churches or places of
prayer.
3. The collection of the taxes is accompanied with unnecessary abuse and
reviling, sometimes even with wanton destruction of property.
4. Disregard of impoverished condition of people. Even after several
failures of crops in succession, when famine was so severe that the
people were many of them being fed by foreign charity, the taxes were
collected in full and with severity.
Their food supply, beds, household utensils, and farming implements were
seized by the collectors in lieu of taxes. Many were compelled to borrow
money at enormous rates of interest, mortgaging their fields and future
crops. Unscrupulous officials and other Kurds, in whose interests such
opportunities are created, thus became possessed of Christian villages,
the people of which henceforth becoming practically slaves to them.
5. These collectors make false returns of taxes received. The official
in the city is secured by a bribe, and the matter is kept quiet until a
succeeding set of officials come into office. They send their officers
to the villages to present claims for back taxes. The villagers in vain
contend that they have paid them. They have no receipts. They do not
dare to ask for them. Or the head man of the village who keeps the
account has been bribed to falsify his accounts. These taxes are
collected again, entailing much suffering upon the people.
6. The books in the government offices at the Kaimakamlik are often
incorrect through mistakes or dishonesty, and in consequence taxes are
paid on fictitious names or on persons who have been dead for years.”
“III. _Farming of taxes._
Taxes are often farmed out to the highest bidder, who usually is some
powerful Kurdish chief. Either in consequence of his power, or by means
of bribes, he is secure from interference on the part of the government.
He collects the amount due the government and then takes for himself as
much as he chooses, his own will or an exhausted threshing-floor being
the only limit to his rapacity.
While he is collector for these villages they are considered as
belonging to him. During the year his followers pay frequent visits to
the villages. They are ignorant and brutal, and on such visits, as also
when collecting taxes, they treat the villagers with the utmost
severity.”
“IV. All the above assessors and collectors—and they are many, a
different one for each kind of tax, personal, house and land, sheep,
tobacco, etc.—on their visits to the villages, take with them _a retinue
of servants and soldiers, who, with their horses, must be kept at the
expense of the village, thus entailing a very heavy additional burden
upon them_. Soldiers and servants sent to the villagers to make
collections, very naturally take something for themselves.”
All the preceding testimony refers to regions where Jacobite and
Nestorian Christians predominate and thus prove that Armenians are by no
means the only sufferers.
The same state of affairs was found by Mrs. Bishop, who made
investigations on the ground five years ago.
“On the whole, the same condition of alarm prevails among the Armenians
as I witnessed previously among the Syrian[10] _rayahs_. It is more than
alarm, it is _abject terror_, and not without good reason. In plain
English, general lawlessness prevails over much of this region. Caravans
are stopped and robbed, travelling is, for Armenians, absolutely unsafe,
sheep and cattle are being driven off, and outrages, which it would be
inexpedient to narrate, are being perpetrated. Nearly all the villages
have been reduced to extreme poverty, while at the same time they are
squeezed for the taxes which the Kurds have left them without the means
of paying.
The repressive measures which have everywhere followed ‘the Erzerum
troubles’ of last June [1890]—the seizure of arms, the unchecked ravages
of the Kurds, the threats of the Kurdish Beys, who are boldly claiming
the sanction of the government for their outrages, the insecurity of the
women, and a dread of yet worse to come—have reduced these peasants to a
pitiable state.”[11]
Through the influence of the British Ambassador at Constantinople Mrs.
Bishop was allowed to state the situation to the Grand Vizier in person,
and on arriving in England she presented a detailed statement of facts
to the Foreign Office and also to a Parliamentary Committee.
That the recent outrages in Sassoun are conspicuous by their extent
rather than character, the following incident, which came within the
author’s own knowledge, on the ground at the time, will show. In June,
1893, four young Armenians and their wives, living only two miles from
the city of Van, where the Governor and a large military force reside,
were picking herbs on the hillside. They carefully kept together and
intended to return before night. They were observed by a band of passing
Kurds, who, in broad daylight, fell upon the defenceless party,
butchered the young men, and, as to the brides, it is needless to relate
further. The villagers going out the next day found the four bodies, not
simply dead, but slashed and disfigured almost beyond recognition. They
resolved to make a desperate effort to let their wrongs at least be
known.
Hastily yoking up four rude ox carts, they placed on each the naked
remains of one of the victims, with his distracted widow sitting by the
side, shorn of her hair in token of dishonor. This gruesome procession
soon reached the outskirts of the city, where it was met by soldiers
sent to turn it back. The unarmed villagers offer no resistance, but
declare their readiness to perish if not heard. The soldiers shrink from
extreme measures that might cause trouble among the thirty thousand
Armenians of Van, who are now rapidly gathering about the scene. The
Turkish bayonets retreat before the bared breasts of the villagers. With
ever increasing numbers, but without tumult, the procession passed
before the doors of the British and Russian Vice-Consulates, of the
Persian Consul-General, the Chief of Police and other high officials,
till it paused before the great palace of the Governor.
At this point Bahri Pasha, who is still Governor, stuck his head out of
the second-story window and said: “I see it. Too bad! Take them away and
bury them. I will do what is necessary.” Within two days some Kurds were
brought in, among whom were several who were positively identified by
the women; but, upon their denying the crime, they were immediately
released and escaped. The utter hopelessness of securing any justice was
so apparent, and experience had so often demonstrated the danger of
arousing the Kurds to greater atrocity by further efforts to punish
them, that the case was dropped and soon forgotten in the callousness
produced by other cases of frequent occurrence. The system of mail
inspection is so effective (all letters of subjects must be handed in
open at the post-office) and the danger of reporting is so great that I
doubt that any account of this incident has ever been given to the
civilized world. This case was doubtless reported by the former British
Vice-Consul, unless he was busy hunting, and, as usual, was buried in
the archives of the Foreign Office for “state reasons.”
A foreign physician, never a missionary, and now out of the country,
told me that during a large practice of a year and a half in Armenia,
while using every effort to save life, only one case was remembered of
regret by the doctor for a fatal ending,—so sad is the lot of those who
survive. This instance will explain the strange statement. A call came
to see a young man sent home from prison in a dying condition. He could
not speak, and had to be nourished for days by artificial feeding,
because his stomach could not retain food. Constant and skilful care for
a month brought him back to life, from the condition to which his vile,
dark, unventilated cell and scanty food had brought him. As soon as the
police learned of his unexpected recovery, he was seized and
re-imprisoned, though an only son, with a widowed mother and sister
dependent upon him. When last heard of, he was still “awaiting trial.”
Such confinement is a favorite method of intimidation and blackmail in
the case of the innocent, and, in the case of the guilty, amounts to
punishment without the cost and labor involved in proving the guilt and
securing sentence by legal process.
From my own house in Van goods of considerable value were stolen in
November, 1893. Though I had good clews to the guilty parties and would
have been glad to recover my property, I felt constrained to use every
precaution _not_ to let the affair come to the ears of the police, lest
they should use it as a pretext for searching the houses of many
innocent Armenians, in the hope of finding a letter, book, or weapon of
some kind, which might serve as an excuse for imprisonment. This course
exposed me to further attacks of thieves and necessitated a night
watchman.
WHY ARE THESE FACTS NOT KNOWN?
The ignorance and incredulity of the public is a most significant
commentary on the situation. But the explanation is simple. In the
nature of the case, in reports of outrages where the victims or their
friends are still within the clutches of the Turks, all names of
individuals and often the exact locality must be concealed. Such
anonymous accounts naturally arouse little interest, and, of course,
cannot be verified. The former British Consul-General at Erzerum, Mr.
Clifford Lloyd, showed me at that place many such reports sent to him by
members of Parliament for verification. He was unable to verify them,
but said that the reports gave a correct impression of the condition of
the country. At that very time, October, 1890, Mr. Lloyd called
attention, in an official dispatch, published in the “_Blue-Books_,” to:
“1. The insecurity of the lives and properties of the Armenians. 2.
The insecurity of their persons, and the absence of all liberty of
thought and action. 3. The unequal status held by the Christian as
compared with the Mussulman in the eyes of the government.”
On this subject there are five channels of varying market value. First.
Consular reports, meagre and often inaccessible. The United States has
no consuls in Armenia, and consequently no “official” knowledge of its
condition. European consuls are expected to report nothing that they are
not absolutely sure of, and are given to understand, both by their own
governments and by that of Turkey, that they must not make themselves
obnoxious in seeking information. They are, at best, passive until their
aid is sought, and then alarm the suppliants by refusing to touch the
case unless allowed to use names. Second. Missionaries, whose mouths are
sealed. They would be the best informed and most trustworthy witnesses.
But they feel it their first duty to safeguard the great benevolent and
educational interests committed to them by not exciting the suspicion
and hostility of the government. Their position is a delicate one,
conditional on their neutrality, like that of officers of the Red Cross
Society in war. Third. Occasional travellers, whose first impressions
are also often their last and whose hasty jottings are likely to be very
interesting and may be very misleading. Not so in the case of Mrs.
Isabella Bird Bishop, whom I had the pleasure of meeting there, and who
embodied the result of her careful investigations in an article
entitled, “The Shadow of the Kurd” in _The Contemporary Review_.[12]
Fourth. Much evidence from Armenian sources, which is often unjustly
discredited as being the exaggeration, if not fabrication, of
“revolutionists who seek a political end.” Fifth. Turkish official
reports, often obtained by corrupt or violent means, or invented to suit
the circumstances. Though the financial credit of the Ottoman Government
was long ago exhausted, there are some well meaning people who still
place confidence in Turkish explanations and promises.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
The scope of this book does not permit a discussion of even the Armenian
phase of the Eastern question, beyond a bare reference to its possible
three-fold solution. There is, first, Russian annexation, a step for
which the sufferers themselves are praying, and which Russia is prepared
to execute at a moment’s notice. If this were the only alternative from
present conditions, it should be universally welcomed. Russia is crude,
stupid, and, in certain aspects, brutal, but she is not decrepit,
debauched, and doting like official Turkey. The diseases of the “Sick
Man” are incurable and increasing, while the bully of the North is
young, of good blood, and with an energy suggestive of a force of
nature. Russia shaves half the head of seceders from the Orthodox Church
and transports them. Turkey, with more tact, quietly “disposes” of
converts from Islam, many of whom would step forth if the prospect were
less than death. The Jewish question, from the Russian standpoint, is
largely a social and industrial one, like the Chinese question in the
United States. When the writer passed from Turkish Armenia into the
Caucasus, it was from a desert to a garden; from danger to perfect
security; from want and sorrow to plenty and cheer.
Until lately, thousands of Turkish Armenians have been in the habit of
crossing the Russian border in spring, earning good wages during the
summer, and returning to spend the winter with their families. This has
opened their eyes to the contrast between the two lands and turned their
hearts to Russia.
The second solution is Armenian autonomy, like that of Bulgaria, the
fond dream of those who ignore the geographical difficulties, the
character, and distribution of the population, and the temper of Russia
and other powers by whom it would have to be established and maintained.
The only other method is radical and vigorous administrative reforms,
which the European powers should initiate, and report to Turkey, instead
of _vice versa_, as arranged in Article LXI. of the Berlin Treaty. These
“Christian nations” have for sixteen years violated most sacred treaty
obligations, and England a special guarantee for such reforms. While
attended with difficulties, this is the most desirable solution, and is
favored by the great mass of Armenians throughout Turkey, by the
Anglo-Armenian Association,[13] founded by Prof. James Bryce, M.P., and
by the Phil-Armenic Society in this country.[14] The real spirit and aim
of the Armenian race, as a whole, is unfortunately obscured, in the mind
of the public, by utterances and acts of a few irresponsible Armenian
hot-heads, who have imbibed nihilistic views in Europe, and are trying,
in a very bungling way, to apply them.