Johnny Turks Media Watch

Dear Sir/Madam,

Attached contains a letter opposing the Australian-Assyrian claims.

As the Australia-Gallipoli Friendship Society, we wrote a letter with full of historical facts with resources.
More details are in the book called "Johnny Turks- Memoirs of Gallipoli- Honorable Enemy" which includes all the documents that written by the honest Australians, in 1915. These memoirs tell us Turks and Australian as well as others ( Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians) were all victims and fellow sufferers of the WWI.The responsible parties and the OIL are the one has pay the price of the WWI, not Turkey.

Attached letter includes;
1- Reasons of opposing the claims,
2- Details and facts that how the Assyrians revolted against Turks by global powers ( such as Britain, France, Russia) which the details taken from the book written by an Australian Prof. Dr. Jeremy Salt, 3-Other historical facts...

After reading the letter carefully, could you please reply this letter accordingly?

Kind regards,
Your electorate,
J.Gul Arslan Founder of the Australia-Gallipoli Friendship Society Inc.2002 'Peace and Harmony in Australia, Peace and Harmony in the Universe'
www.ausgallipoli.net

Sir Maurice Hankey: “Control of these resources becomes a first-class war aim”

Do we really need to inflame historical bases passions over false accusations?

What’s happened to the Australian multiculturalism?

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing this letter in regards to the so-called Assyrian genocide allegations towards Turkey, which will be discussed in your parliament on the 23rd of February 2010. I am a proud Turkish-Australian who has established a society called Australia-Gallipoli Friendship Society in 2002 which aimed to promote and improve friendship in between Australians and Turks.
Indenting, our relationship is a model to the rest of the world that only two country that respect each other even after the horrific war.
When we heard the NSW parliament is going to discuss and judge Turkey for a negative way whereas most of the Australians soldiers found Turks; a “Honourable Enemy” 2006, David McLachlan – president of RSL Victoria[1] ,
I have being telling the Turkish people in Turkey how the Australian parliamentarians re going to judge Turkey, on the 23 February 2010. Everyone who I told this bad news, Turks were all extremely angry and shocked by it since how the Turks embrace the Australians in Gallipoli every year.

I would like start with the following passage; “You will hear extraordinary horrible stories practiced by Turks. Well, don’t believe a word of them. They are grossly exaggerated if not wholly false. You will be surprised at the gentlemanly way the Turks has fought us.” [2] I have included more historical facts below in the letter. Reminding, when so-called genocide allegations asked the ex-Liberal Foreign Minister Mr. Downer on the 11 February 2007, he said that; “ ... in Australia we have a significant Turkish community, an ethnic Turkish community. We have an Armenian community that would not be anything like as big as the Turkish community. The debate is about events that occurred a long time ago, and I don’t think we are going to offer a running commentary on the events. Whatever we may think about history, we deal with the present and future, but we can’t change the past, not even the Australian government can change the past. If we could there would be a lot of changes we would make.”
What is the role of the Australian government, to be an historian?

Taking you back, millions of Turkish people also killed during the WWI (1911-1919), including the Gallipoli War? Why no one remembers that?
British propaganda revolting the Ottoman ethics (see the Fact[3] end of this letter)

As we all know that, Australia fought for almost nothing but for British Empire and lost many lives and its oil resources found by an Australian businessman. Ultimately, Australia gained nothing out of First World War Gallipoli War -1915 except its identity. Similar fate shared with Ottomans, Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians; they were all fellow sufferers.

Let me ask further;
Who remembers Iraqi people in Australian parliament now?
Who remembers Bosnian people in Australian parliament now?
Not many!, I wonder why not many?
Could it be a Muslim versus Christian issue? Isn’t that so backward? Please lets stop being unnecessarily discriminative!

The Australian Government have nothing to do with such issues. The only real thing that Australia and Turkey have in common is the Gallipoli campaign. Obviously everybody knows why Australia & Turkey fought against each other at Gallipoli; The Turks fought to save their own homeland and the Australians had to fight on behalf of the British Empire. If we need to judge the history in that case we have to accept some realities.What was the real reason of the WWI?
Would the answer be Oil?
Since Britain lacked oil in the home islands, British strategists wanted still more reserves to assure the future needs of their empire.
In eight months and half; 500.000 man killed because of oil !!! (How many know that an Australian businessman D’archy William Knox who found the oil in the Middle East in about 1907, after drilling down for about 7 years. The Australian businessman Knox who lost his wealth which taken by the British and an Armenian businessman; Calouste Gulbenkian - making him one of the world’s richest men). Despite of the Ottoman Empire (Turks) used to own half of the world’s ( Middle East) oil fields in the above mention fields and Turks gained almost nothing after the WWI but British and its allies gained the most of the oil fields. 95 years later, obviously, Australia supporting the false Armenians and Assyrians claims against Turkey WWI hasn’t ended yet in the mind of the Australian Politian’s. We believe that the Australian Government jeopardises multiculturalism but nothing much. If the Australian parliament continues to listen to small groups that keep on claiming this so called "Genocide" was caused by Turkey, then it’s un-Australian for the Australian Government to act like this.

FYI, the Bureau of Statistics says that 1 in 4 people living in Australia are either migrants or have a migrant parent. Australians have a distinct identity and most of us wish to maintain it. Foundations of modern Australia were built on migrants leaving their conflicts back in their homelands, and not perpetuating them here.
That is why Australian society is a success. This motion is going to be a bad move by the NSW parliament.


Let’s stop encouraging these groups to lobby against certain countries when they don't even have the true facts because it will create disharmony amongst all of us.
Australia should stop listening to groups who are lobbying against Turkey without the real facts. Reminding, Turkey welcomes thousands of Australians to Gallipoli every year because of Turkey was a country that killed people for no reason, we wouldn't be greeting Australians (who tried to take our country) with open arms by fostering this already significant relationship between Australia and Turkey. With this kind of actions such as recognition of so-called Armenian genocide or Assyrian Genocide etc…will make Australia nothing to gain but will lose the friendship and respect of Turkish people all over the world- about 200 million)

Whatever problems the Armenian's or Assyrian's have with Turkey, these problems should be solved by these countries themselves, what benefit does Australia get out of recognizing this so called "Assyrian Genocide" this time?Can history be judged by parliamentarians? Only historians can state the true facts! We must teach our next generations to love all cultures and respect them, so lets set an model to the rest of the world not, not join them!
We rely to the NSW parliament will to stop and not let to grow such foreign seeds in our Australian land.Let us focus and celebrate the things that unite us, rather than what divides us!Kind regards from Turkey,

J.Gul Arslan Founder of the Australia-Gallipoli Friendship Society Inc.2002 Author of the book named: ‘Johnny Turks – Honourable enemy of Australians –Memoirs of Gallipoli’ )www.ausgallipoli.net Blogs: http://proudturks.blogspot.com/http://johnnyturks-mediawatch.blogspot.com/http://johnnyturksinkorea.blogspot.com/http://faq-armeniandilemma.blogspot.com/

DETAILS:
[1] Mr. Mclachlan declared to the national media that he officially accepted the Victoria Turkish Community to march on Anzac days along side Australians on 12 th of April 2006 , “ Turks had been the enemy, Major-General McLachlan said. "But they were a very Honourable Enemy."http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/anzac-march-open-to-johnny-turk/2006/04/11/1144521340623.html

[2] Jim Haynes (Cobbers — Stories of Gallipoli 1915 p. 178).

[3] ( Powerful Secretary of the British War Cabinet, wrote to Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour during the war’s final stage, to argue that oil had become absolutely vital to Britain and that oil resources in Mesopotamia would be crucial in the future. Sir Maurice Hankey: “Control of these resources becomes a first-class war aim”
THE FACTS:
FACT 1:After the Australian history professor Jeremy Salt discovered a book called; ‘ The Great Game of Genocide’ ( written by Donald Bloxham) which contains faked photographs and documents. After complains, this book had to drop out from book store shelves.
FACT2:A book named; "The Genocide of Truth" opens to the world on internet at "www.armenians-1915.blogspot.com" Presented some 2000 verbatim excerpts from anti-Turkish writers & documents. There was no BENEFIT - TIME - PLACE - NUMBERS - CORPSES or even neutral eye witnesses. These are "money milking" fabrications selling hatred and victimization.
http://www.turkishny.com/hot-news/50/22738-suryani-soykrm-oyunu-bozuluyor.html

From the book : ‘Sacred Trust/ Small Wars in Iraq’Jeremy Salt
FACT3:The problems involved in resettling the Assyrians were vastly complicated by Britain’s creation of separate ethno-religious military units. Arabs and Kurds recruited for this purpose had to put up with public abuse and ostracism. They were assaulted with “ all sort of propaganda.

FACT4: The precise shares in the company were as follows: British Petroleum 23.75%, Royal Dutch Shell 23.75%, Compagnie Française des Petroles 23.75%, US consortium 23.75%, Calouste Gulbenkian 5%.
DETAILS:The Nestorian and Jacobite Assyrians were a small minority living among the Kurdish population of the Hakkari region. The Nestorain Assyrians belonged to the Holy Apolotolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East and the Jacobite Assyrians to the Syrian Orthodox Church) The Ottoman government had asked the Assyrians ( as well as Armenians) to remain neutral in the war, but in May 1915, with the Russians advancing into north-eastern Anatolia, Nestorians tribal and church leaders committed their people to war on the Russian side. The first blow was the treacherous murder on March 16,1918, of the patriarch Benyamin d’Mar Shimun by Ismail Aga, the Kurdish tribal leader known as Simko ( the “little man” ). In revenge attacks, hundreds of Kurdish villagers were killed and Simko –the “ Kurdish Zapara” – was forced to take flight. Salahi R. Sonyel, The Assyrians of Turkey: Victims of Major Power Policy ( Ankara: Turkish Historical Society,2001), 122
In 1918 British emissaries to Urmia encourage the Assyrians to stand firm against to the Turks assuring then that they would receive the protection due to a “small and a oppressed” people but apparently without holding out the specific promise of an independent state ( a claim contested by the Assyrians) Ibid, 98-108They also promised arms. The Assyrians had weapons left behind by the Russians but needed more. Towards the end of July more than a thousand men set out from Urmia to take delivery of arms and ammunition, only to find when they reached the rendezvous point that the British had left. In the mean time, Ottomans forces had closed in on Urmia,. A huge refugee column headed south. According to Arnold Wilson: “ Several thousand, mostly women and children, perished from exhaustion and disease on their way to Mesopotamia, a distance of some 500 miles, though every efforts was made by the military authorities at Hamadan and Kirmansiah to provide food and shelter.” Wilson, Loyalties,36. By the mean time the column reached Hamadan, 20.000 of the 50.000 Assyrians who left Urmia were thought to have died. In August the refugees were taken by lorry to a camp at Benhuba, north cost of Baghdad. Many were already to ill to survive., Between September 1918 and September 1919, 5089 Assyrians or Armenians or Armenians ( out of a camp population of about 50,000) died from typhus ot other diseases. Ozdemir, Salgi Hastaliklardan Olumler,355.]
Assyrian hope and British contemplation of an Assyrian buffer state that could be established across Ottoman, Persian and Iraqi borders came to nothing. Some Assyrians returned to Hakkari 1924 but were driven back across the border after an attempt was made to assassinate the Turkish governor of the province.. Seeing that the Assyrians could not return to their Turkish homeland, Britain sought to bring their homeland to them by asking the League of Nations to attach Hakkari to Iraqi, on the understanding that homes for the Assyrians would be found somewhere in the Mosul region. Assyrians hopes of being given a “separate and homogeneous existence” had now been dealt a lethal blow. In the view of British officials it would be impossible to find territory for their settlements as a “compact and organised community” in Iraq. Memorandum on the Assyrian Question”, August 25, 1934, RI: 604

Proposals were put forward to resettle the Assyrians in Albania, Brazil, Argentinean, Mexico, British, Guiana and Australia, whose government was prepared to relax its “white Australia” immigration policy because the Assyrians were Christians and not much different from the Italians in the colour of their skin. Sonyel, Assyrians of Turkey,174-75.
None of these schemes came to anything either the one thing the Assyrians did want they could never get, and that was the autonomy they thought they had been promised to entice them into the war.

The problems involved in resettling the Assyrians were vastly complicated by Britain’s creation of separate ethno-religious military units. Arabs and Kurds recruited for this purpose had to put up with public abuse and ostracism. They were assaulted with “ all sort of propaganda. For instance, they were openly called infidels in the bazaars and streets, tea and coffee would not be served to them in the coffee shops, in several cafes stone water pots from which thy had drunk were broken. Their female relatives would crowd around the barracks calling on their sons etc. by name to come and protect them. Those from the tribes realized that to stay with the Levies meant definitely cutting off relations with their tribes.”

Eventually the Arabs and Kurdish levies were integrated into the regular army, but the Assyrian levies several thousand strong , were retained as a separate unit and sent into action alongside regular British forces against Arab and Kurdish “rebels” Administration Report on Arabs and Kurdish Levies for Year 1920-1921” IAR,6.89.They were hard to discipline when their blood was up, but their bravery and their Christianity made them ideal candidates to fight under British command. The photograph show smartly dressed soldiers in Australian bush hats, obviously proud of their new status as embassy and airfield guards and fighting men in the field, but their use against their putative fellow countryman gave rise to fierce resentment. The Kurds, in particularly, sufferers heavy losses as the result of operations involving Assyrian ground forces and the RAF, The policy if moving Kurdish villagers in the Mosul region on make way for Assyrian settles (regarded as form of punishment for the murder of British officers by Kurdish) only depended the antagonism between the two groups. Wilson, Loyalties, 39-40In August 1923, the presence of armed Assyrians in the town of Mosul provoked a confrontation with the local people. On May 4. 1924 an alterations between the levies and Muslims shopkeepers in Kirkuk ended in a massacre of Muslim. The Assyrians opened up with their machine guns. According to a British account : “ In spite of the efforts of their British officers and native non-commissioned officers to restrain them, the Assyrians ran amok through the towns, firing at all Moslems of whom a number were killed, and looting shops and houses. Report on the Administration of Iraq for the Period April, 1923-December,1924, “IAR, 7:548.It was later estimated that the Assyrians had killed more than three hundred people Report on the Administration of Iraq for the Period April, 1923-December,1924, “IAR, 7:548.Only the arrival of British troops and armored cars prevented a wave of revenge bloodletting directed against Christians. Eight Assyrians were eventually found guilty of murder; the court was satisfied that they had opened fire on the townspeople with their Lewis guns, “ but as it could not be proved that they had actually killed anyone, the sentence of death was commuted to imprisonment for life” Report on the Administration of Iraq for the Period April, 1923-December,1924, “IAR, 7:548.The massacre in Kirkuk and Muslim resentment ( Kurdish as well as Sunni and Shii Arabs at the use of the Assyrians as an instrument of imperial control built up to the tragedy the Assyrians suffered in 1933 after a collision between their fighting men and Iraqi force led by a commander of Kurdish origin – Bakr Sidqi.
Confrontation and MassacreThe pressure for a separate Assyrian homeland had been maintained by the patriarch Mar Shimun, born in 1908 and invested as patriarch in 1920 in accordance with the tradition of succession from uncle to nephew. In 1931 and again in 1932 he had petitioned the League of Nations to give his people the compact home they wanted. The Assyrians were desperate for their status to be resolved before the mandate ended. It was a struggle against all odds. The Assyrians had powerful Christian supporters in Britain (up to the archbishop of Canterbury) , but the Iraqi government had no intervention of granting autonomy to any ethno-religious minority. The British government was sympathetic to the cause of gallant of wartime ally and had to take into account public opinion an the domestic front but believed that Assyrian lenders were simply refusing to face “unpalatable facts”. “Memorandum on the Assyrian Question”, 604.Iraq was finally admitted to the League fo Nations on October3,1932. but without any special provision being made for the Assyrians. On December 5, Mar Shimun addressed by the Permanent Mandates Commission, but ten days later the League of Nations council accepted to the commission’s recommendation that the Assyrians should not be given administrative autonomy. The root of the problem was declared to be land, not identity, and the solution the settlement of landless Assyrians “as far as possible in homogeneous units, it being understood” – here the language was strikingly reminiscent of the Balfour Declaration – “ that the right of existing population should not be prejudiced” Ibid, 605.Mat Shimun continued to insist on the recognition of the Assyrians as a “ compact national group” and refused to accept the British insistence that his role now must spiritual and not tempral. On his return to Baghdad the patriarch complained to the king and the minister of the interior, who was prevented from having him arrested only by the intervention of the British for the time being meanwhile, in his absence from Mosul, the movement of bands of armed Assyrians was fast reaching the point of open confrontation with the Iraqi authorities.On Kuly 22,1933, new reached the capital that a band of about 1,200 armed Assyrians had crossed the Tigris River in the vicinity of the villages of Feish Khabur and Deir Abun, both of them close to the borders with Turkey ans Syria. A number of the Assyrians camping on the Syrian side