The seizure of Armenian property by the Ottoman and Turkish governments involved the confiscation of Armenian assets, property and land of the country's people. Beginning with the Hamidian massacre in the mid-1890s and culminating during the Armenian Genocide, the confiscation of Armenian property continued on until the Istanbul pogrom in 1955 and with new efforts in 1974. Much of the seizure during the Armenian Genocide was made after the Armenians were deported into the Syrian Desert by the government declared their belongings and assets abandoned as "abandoned". Almost all properties owned by Armenians living in their ancestral land in western Armenia were confiscated and then distributed among the local Muslim population. Renewed efforts were introduced in 1974 where the property acquired by Armenian society after the 1936 property declaration was confiscated.
Historians argue that the mass seizure of Armenian property was an important factor in shaping the economic base of the Turkish Republic while providing Turkey's economy with capital. Deprivation leads to the formation of a new Turkish bourgeoisie and an exclusive middle class.
Video Confiscation of Armenian properties in Turkey
History
Foreclosure as part of Armenian Genocide
On May 16, 1915, when the Armenian Genocide was under way, a secret order was circulated entitled "administrative instructions concerning movable and immovable property left by the deported Armenians as a result of war and unusual political circumstances." Once authorized, the directive establishes a special commission, known as the "Abandoned Property Commission" (Turkish: EmvÃÆ' Â ¢ li MetrÃÆ'Â »to Dare Komisyonlar?) And" Liquidation Commission "(Turkish: Tasfiye Komisyonu), who is given the duty of giving detailed information and assess the value of assets "abandoned" by the deportees under the guise of "guarding" them. The number of these commissions rose to 33 in January 1916. After the departure of persons deported, goods and livestock considered "easily damaged" are prioritized as the first item to be sold by public auction, while the profits from this auction are kept under the right of the owner. After giving the documentation of the property (a copy given to the owner and the Ottoman Ottoman), the directive states that Muhajirs (Turkish refugees primarily from the Balkan wars) must be settled on vacant land and property belonging to the deported person. Once completed, the refugees must register the land and house, while other assets affixed to the property, such as olive groves and vineyards, will be allocated among them. Unwanted items and assets must be sold in a public auction. According to historian Dickran Kouymjian, the settlement of the muhajirs to the land and property of the deported Armenian implies that the local authorities have direct knowledge that the deported person never returned.
On May 29, 1915, the Central Committee of the United Development and Development Committee (CUP) adopted the Tehcir Act authorizing the deportation of "persons perceived as threats to national security." The Tehcir Law stressed that deportees should not sell their assets, but provide a detailed list and submit the list to the local authorities:
Leave all your stuff - your furniture, your bed, your artifacts. Close your store and business with everything in it. Your door will be sealed with special stamps. Upon returning, you will get everything you leave behind. Do not sell any expensive properties or goods. Buyers and sellers alike will be responsible for legal action. Put your money into the bank on behalf of relatives who are abroad. Make a list of all your belongings, including livestock, and give it to the designated officials so that all your stuff can be returned to you later. You have ten days to obey this ultimatum.
While Tehcir's law is being implemented, the Directorate of Settlement of Tribes and Refugees (Turkey: Iskan-i Asairin Muhacirin Muduriyeti), under the Ministry of Interior, was assigned in June 1915 to deal with the property left behind by deportees. or killing Armenians. This Commission, whose salaries provided by property were seized by Armenians, resulted in "Provisional Law of Expropriation and Foreclosure (" Property abandoned "law) and published in the official list on September 27 (September 13 according to Islamic calendar) and passed further directive for the execution law on 8 November The purpose of the law simultaneously to reduce the ownership of Armenian property, enrich the national politicians, and to resettle Turkish Muslim refugees in confiscated property The property is confiscated including personal property (including land, building, and bank accounts), business, community property (eg church) Items that are considered useful for immediate war effort are prioritized and immediately seized with separate decisions.Based on the law, property and asset transactions are prohibited prior to deportation thereby preventing the owner from having the opportunity to keep his property. it is called "Temporary", the provisions in it t seems to lead to a permanent transformation of ethnic societies from Armenia to Muslim Turkey.
This resettlement law does contain formal reporting of property to national authorities and contains procedures for those who have property taken to prosecute, but the legal specifications made by this provision serve a greater purpose for the "Turkify" region and economic sector. Property and revenue records resulting from the sale or lease of the seized property are all recorded and kept by the Ministry of Finance to provide the possibility of returning the property to the owner. In addition, the law provides that those whose properties have been confiscated to claim property returns (and payments for any damages incurred). However, the law requires property owners to sue and present themselves (not allowing legal counsel), an impossibility when property owners have been killed or deported. In addition, the defendant in any case is a country that makes the chances of success in every case very unlikely. Finally, the law stipulates that the confiscated property is sold at auction; however, because the law stipulates that "anyone other than Turkish Muslim refugees can only acquire property in Turkey with the approval of the Ministry of Interior", the result is that non-Turkish Muslims are effectively excluded. Wealth is often given to national and local political elites, who eventually give it to Turkish Muslim refugees.
The impact of this law is immediate. According to a report in June 1916 by the German ambassador stationed in Constantinople, Armenian goods "had long been confiscated, and their capital was liquidated by so-called commissions, meaning that if an Armenian had a house of value in, say, Ã, Â £ T100, a Turkish - a friend or a member [of Ittihad and Terakki] - can have it for about Ã, Â £ T2. "
The only notable domestic opposition was Ottoman parliamentary representative Ahmed Riza, who stated:
It is against the law to designate Armenian assets as "displaced goods" for the Armenians, the owners, not to leave their property voluntarily; they were forced, forcibly removed from their homes and exiled. Now the government through its efforts to sell their goods... No one can sell my property if I do not want to sell it. Article 21 of the Constitution prohibits it. If we are a constitutional regime that functions in accordance with constitutional law, we can not do this. This is horrible. Hold my arm, remove me from my village, then sell my goods and property, things like that will never be allowed. Neither the Ottoman conscience nor the law could permit it.
Formal referrals are made to have many properties and businesses confiscated from Armenians to be transferred into the hands of Muslims. On January 6, 1916, Talaat Pasha, Minister of the Interior of the Ottoman Empire, decided:
Moving properties left behind by Armenians should be preserved for long-term preservation, and for the sake of improving Muslim businesses in our country, companies need to be strictly established composed of Muslims. Moving properties should be given to them in appropriate conditions which will ensure the stable consolidation of the business. Founders, management, and representatives should be selected from respected and elite leaders, and to allow traders and agricultural experts to participate in their dividends, vouchers must be half a lira or lira and registered on their behalf to preclude capital falling in foreign hands. The entrepreneurial growth in the minds of Muslims needs to be monitored, and this effort and the results of its implementation should be reported to the ministry gradually.
In addition to churches and monasteries, other community-owned properties that were confiscated were schools and educational facilities. The Interior Ministry has ordered such educational facilities to be assigned to Muslims:
It is necessary to adapt schools in the cities and villages that the Armenians have emptied to Muslim immigrants to settle there. However, the present value of the building, the amount and value of the educational material needs to be registered and sent to the general listing department.
Following the decision, private Armenian schools became Ottoman Turkish schools and school supplies were distributed to Turkish Muslims. Abraham Harutiunian, a priest who lives in Zeitun, noted in his memoir that the school in Zeitun was confiscated by the government and that "the Armenians no longer have the right to education, and the campus is now filled with hundreds of Turkish children."
By the early 1930s, all the property belonging to Armenians who were the subject of deportation had been confiscated. Since then, no property compensation has been confiscated during the Armenian Genocide. The abandoned property law remained in force for 73 years until it was finally abolished on 11 June 1986. Mass property confiscation provides an opportunity for lower lower class Turks (ie peasants, soldiers and workers) to rise to the middle class. The contemporary Turkish historian U Ê »u ÃÆ'Ã…" mit ÃÆ'Ã… "ngÃÆ'¶r asserts that" the abolition of the Armenian population left the state of the Armenian property infrastructure, which was used for the advancement of the Turkish community (settlers).In other words: the development of the ÃÆ'? Â © tatist "national economy "Turkey is unthinkable without the destruction and takeover of the Armenians."
Ottoman foreclosure rate
Although the exact level of property seized during the Armenian Genocide is unknown, according to Talaat Pasha's personal document, the main initiator of Tehcir Law, a total of 20,545 buildings were seized including 267,536 hectares of land along with agricultural land and other workable soils. such as 76,942 hectares of vineyards, 703,941 hectares of olive groves, and 4,573 hectares of mulberry fields.
During the Paris Peace Conference, the Armenian delegation presented a material valuation of $ 3.7 billion (about $ 52 billion today) owned solely by the Armenian church. During the conference in February 1920, the Armenian community presented additional demand for restitution of property and assets confiscated by the Ottoman government. The joint declaration, submitted to the Supreme Council by an Armenian delegation and prepared by religious leaders of the Armenian community, claims that the Ottoman government has destroyed 2,000 churches and 200 monasteries and has provided a legal system to grant this property to others. party. The Declaration also provides a financial assessment of the total loss of personal property and assets of the Turkish and Russian Armenians respectively with 14,598,510,000 and 4,532,472,000 francs; for a total of approximately $ 339 billion today. Furthermore, the Armenian society requested restitution of the property of the church and the replacement of the resulting income. The Ottoman government never responded to this declaration and so no restitution took place.
The issue of seized property of Armenia appears in a number of agreements signed between the First Republic of Armenia and the Ottoman Empire. Both the Battery Agreement (signed June 4, 1918) and the Treaty of SÃÆ'¨vres (signed August 10, 1920) contain provisions relating to restitution for confiscated property of Armenians. The Treaty of SÃÆ'¨vres under Article 144 provides that the Commissioners of Ownership and the Liquidated Commission issued shall be deleted and the laws of forfeiture shall be canceled. Meanwhile, however, those who seized assets and property of the Armenians turned to support Turkey's national movement since the dissolution of the Ottoman government would mean that property and assets would be protected on their behalf. Thus, on May 8, 1920, the first law passed by the newly formed parliament was to pardon those accused of massacres and property acquisitions by Turkish military courts in 1919-20. Subsequently, with the formation of the Turkish republic and the signing of the Lausanne Treaty (24 July 1923), the provisions of the Sevres Treaty ultimately never took effect and the liquidation committee involved with the confiscation of Armenian property resumed operations.
In addition to the confiscated property, large amounts of money and precious metals belonging to Armenians were also confiscated and kept in the treasury of the Ottoman government or in various German or Austrian banks during the war. The sums are believed to have been withdrawn from the bank accounts of Armenians deported and killed. An official memorandum prepared by former British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and H. H. Asquith was sent to British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald describing such foreclosures and deposits:
The sum of 5,000,000 Turkish pounds (representing about 30,000 kilograms of gold) deposited by the Turkish government at the Reichsbank in Berlin in 1916, and taken over by the Allies after the Armistice, was largely (probably) Armenian money. After the forced deportation of the Armenians in 1915, their deposit and deposit accounts were transferred, on the orders of the government, to the Treasury Department in Constantinople.
Most money deposits to banks and other financial institutions have also been seized immediately after deportation. After the deposit is made, the certificate is given to depositors as proof of deposit. However, once the deportation begins, withdrawal is prohibited. Many of the deportees who keep deposits are left with only the certificates they have. Many of the depositors still carry certificates of deposit today. The historian Kevork Baghdjian states that the value of these deposits "should rise to an incredible amount today," with "combined capital and interests combined."
Foreclosure during the Turkish Republic
After the Turkish War of Independence and the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, foreclosures continued with the vast majority of Armenians deported or killed. During the early Republican era, the legal terminology was changed from "the person who was transported" to "the missing person or escaped from the country."
On April 15, 1923, just before the signing of the Lausanne Treaty, the Turkish government imposed a "Abandoned Property Law" which confiscated the property of Armenians who were not in their property, regardless of the circumstances of the reason. While local courts are authorized to assess the value of any property and allow the property owner to file a claim, the law prohibits the use of any power by the absent property holder, preventing them from filing a lawsuit without returning to the country. In addition, the defendant in this case is a Turkish state that has established a commission assigned specifically to handle each case.
In addition to this law, the Turkish government continued to deprive citizens of many by law on May 23, 1927 stating that "the Ottomans who during the Independence War did not take part in the National movement, kept coming out of Turkey and did not return from July 24, 1923 to the date of the issuance of this law, has removed Turkey's citizenship. "In addition, further legislation passed on May 28, 1928 stipulates that those who have lost their nationality will be expelled from Turkey, not allowed to return, and that their property will be seized by the Turkish government, and Turkish migrants will be resettled on the property.
In preparation for a possible entry into World War II, the Turkish government introduced a tax, Varl? K Vergisi, who disproportionately target Turkish non-Muslim population. Many Armenians, and other non-Muslim populations, are forced to sell their property for a very low price through a public auction to pay for a sudden tax increase or to have property confiscated by the state. In addition, the law allows authorities to seize family property from taxpayers to pay taxes. Of this tax, the Turkish government collected 314.9 million lira (about US $ 270 million (80% of the state budget) from confiscation of non-Muslim assets.
This period coincides with the further seizure of the Armenian private property. Special commissions were created to separate non-Muslim evictions from others. The commission's researchers usually speed up the evacuation and ultimately confiscation of the non-Muslim property in question.
Varl? K Vergisi was followed by the Istanbul pogrom a few years later, in which the organized masses attacked the Greeks and Armenians on 6-7 September 1955. The material damage was considerable, with damage to 5317 properties (including 4214 houses, 1004 businesses, 73 churches, 2 monasteries, 1 synagogue, and 26 schools). Estimated cost of economic damage ranges from the Turkish government's estimate of 69.5 million Turkish liras (equivalent to 24.8 million US $), UK forecast of 100 million GBP (approx. 200 million US $), World Council of Churches estimate of 150 million US $ , and the Greek government estimates of $ 500 million. Pogrom eventually led to a non-Muslim exodus abroad, resulting in a large number of "abandoned" properties. The property left behind by those who escaped was seized by the Turkish state after ten years.
In the 1960s, new laws were passed, which made it impossible for Armenians to set up new foundations or buy or pass on additional properties. One such code of code (Act No. 903) adopted in 1967, together with the second paragraph modified by the Turkish Civil Code (No. 743) states that, "Registration of foundations that violate any law, morality, tradition or national interest, or established to support political beliefs, certain races or members of minorities will not be approved. "The law is considered by jurists as a violation of articles on minority rights found in the Laussane Treaty, the Turkish Constitution, and Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights Man, who gives "the freedom to establish foundations and meetings." New amendments and legal codes form the basis for a series of new foreclosures that significantly hinder the daily life of Armenians in Turkey.
In 1974 a new law was passed stating that non-Muslim beliefs can not have more properties than those already registered on their behalf in 1936. As a result, more than 1,400 assets (including churches, schools, residential buildings, hospitals , camp summer, tombs, and orphanages) of the Armenian Armenian community since 1936 are retrospectively classified as illegal acquisitions and seized by the state. Under the law, Turkish courts grant Turkish citizens of non-Turkish descent "foreigners", thus placing them under the same legal rules of any foreign company or property owner living outside Turkey who is not a Turkish citizen. Further provisions provide that non-Muslim foundations are a potential "threat" to national security. This process involves the return of any property acquired after 1936, either by sweepstakes, donations, or purchases, to their former owner or heir. If the former owner has died without leaving the heir, the property will be transferred to a particular government agency such as the Treasury or the Directorate General of the Foundation.
On June 11, 1986, the law on "abandoned" property during the Armenian Genocide was canceled, which ended 73 years of effectiveness. Throughout the Republic period, the law continues to provide a legal basis for the seizure of additional property that belongs to the deported person. Although the law was abolished in 1986, the Directorate General of Land Registration and Cadastre (Turkey: Tapu ve Kadastro Genel MÃÆ'¼dÃÆ'¼rlÃÆ'¼? ÃÆ'¼) issued an order on 29 June 2001 that effectively divert all remaining "abandoned" property to the government. The order also prohibits the disclosure of any information regarding the title or documentation of the property. As a result, the owner or his heirs can not file a claim against the property because it is now safely sanctioned under Turkish law and has become the property of the state.
Current developments
The former terminology of civil legislation and regulations has not changed significantly since the 1960s and 70s, which ultimately subdued the assets and property of Armenian society for further seizure. Although the terminology has changed little, the current civil regime still has enough executive power to confiscate property under the basis of protecting the "national unity" of the Turkish Republic.
Because of such laws and regulations, no church has ever been built in the history of the Turkish Republic. All existing churches were built prior to the establishment of the Republic in 1923. Permits for the construction of the Syriac church were given in December 2012, but were rejected by the Assyrian people because the land was used for Latin cemeteries.
In an effort by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to comply with EU standards, the opening of Ottoman land registration and deed of deed to the public are considered. However, on August 26, 2005, the Turkish National Security Committee of the Turkish Armed Forces banned the effort by stating:
The Ottoman records kept in the Land Registry Office and the Cadet Directorate General should be sealed and not available to the public, as they have the potential to be exploited by genocide claims and property claims against the assets of the Amal Negara Foundation. Opening them for common use is against the state's interests.
On June 15, 2011, the US Foreign Affairs Committee of the 112th Congress passed House Resolution 306 through a 43-to-1 vote demanding from the Turkish Republic "to protect its Christian heritage and return the confiscated property of the church." Turkish-American organizations tried to block the bill to escape but ultimately failed.
Maps Confiscation of Armenian properties in Turkey
Contemporary analysis
Istanbul
After two years of research, the Hrant Dink Foundation published a book, some 400 pages, describing the current situation of assets and property confiscated from the Armenian community. With the help of government deeds and title records, members of the Hrant Dink foundation have found titles of all properties owned by various foundations and have produced books full of photos, graphics, maps and other illustrations depicting the capture of the property and its current assets and status. The Hrant Dink foundation stated that 661 properties in Istanbul were confiscated by the Turkish government, leaving only 580 of the 1,328 properties owned by 53 Armenian foundations (schools, churches, hospitals, etc.). The current state of the remaining 87 can not be determined. Of 661 seized properties, 143 (21.6%) have been returned to the Armenian foundation.
The Hrant Dink Foundation examines foreclosures and provides descriptions, photographs and borders on its interactive mapping sources.
Important foreclosure
See also
- Armenian Genocide
- Armenian Genocide reparation
- Varl? k Vergisi
- Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey
References
- Notes
- References
Bibliography
External links
- Hrant Dink Foundation: Website dedicated to property confiscation. The site includes maps, detailed history, and status.
- (YouTube Video) Prof. Ugur Ungor Discusses Property Confiscation During Armenian Genocide (30 April 2012)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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