Hranush Kharatyan gives harsh answer to Andranik Kocharyan, who  wanted to compile lists of victims of Armenian Genocide

ArmInfo. Ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan gave harsh answer to Chairman of the Standing Parliamentary 

Commttee on Defense and Security, MP from the ruling Civil Contract party Andranik Kocharyan, who today stated that it is necessary to clarify and record the names of all victims of the Armenian Genocide 

in the Ottoman Empire.  "In the end, you need to have a list of all the victims. What if there are more or less than 1.5 million, as is commonly believed," Kocharyan explained, assuring that this initiative is also important for building relations with Turkey.

"Andranik Kocharyan is looking for and does not find the names of the 

victims of the genocide, or does he really want to know the number of 

victims of the genocide, saying: "If indeed one and a half million 

people were victims of genocide, can you list their names?"

However,  the last words of his sentence leave no doubt, he says: "so 

that we can accept." That is, from Kocharyan's words, one can come to 

the conclusion that "recognition or non-recognition" is hampered by 

the lack of lists or not knowing their names," the Armenian 

ethnographer was indignant. In this vein, she called for a start to 

figure out who the MP from the ruling force means , using the phrase 

"we" and how many "we" there are.

The ethnographer suggested to Kocharyan to visit to the villages of 

Talin, Shirak, Echmiadzin, and ask the people living there the names 

of their grandfathers, grandmothers, children who died in the family, 

they keep these names sacredly.

"Just Mr. Kocharyan, take a thick notebook with you to write down 

these names. Of course, you won't get one and a half million, for 

that you have to travel to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and only 

after that, to other distant countries, where those who escaped from 

the genocide fled.  You can also leave for Turkiye. Armenians live 

there, and 30-40 people in their families were killed. I'll give you 

the addresses if you need them. Go ahead, Mr. Kocharyan, this is no 

more difficult task than the life of several generations of people 

who have been haunted by the memories of these names for more than a 

hundred years, which you destroy with one sentence.

But I am ready to make your work easier, Mr. Kocharyan. These names 

are not in the archives; they probably existed in the parish books of 

Armenian churches, which, unfortunately, were not preserved in 

Turkish archives and among the current residents of former Armenian 

villages. They weren't kept at all.  They were burned like the 

corpses of Armenians," added Kharatyan. In this vein, the 

ethnographer drew the attention of the MP from the ruling force to 

the fact that in 1915, the person responsible for getting rid of the 

corpses of Armenians was appointed and his name was Truto Aras.  

"Then he made a diplomatic proposal to get rid of the corpses of 

Armenians by burning people alive, drowning them, throwing them into 

the water, and only when there was a need for a massacre, they 

gathered them in caves and carried out a massacre there. There are 

many sources about cases of burning Armenians in barns and churches. 

Do you need their names, Mr. Kocharyan? If so, tell me, don't worry, 

I will send them.

Mr. Trutto Aras was a "genius", a pure work - burn, no trace. But it 

turned out that the proposal to drown in water was not a very good 

decision. Murat and the Euphrates were so filled with corpses that 

the water became dangerous. Cases of poisoning have become more 

frequent. This was before July, the massacre was just beginning, and 

there was still so much massacre ahead. On July 1, 1915, Talyat and 

Dzhemal Pasha ordered by telegram to bury the corpses and not throw 

them into the rivers. On July 3, 1915, in response to this telegram, 

the governor of Diyarbakir telegraphed Taliat: "The Euphrates is not 

very close to our vilayet. It is likely that the bodies sailed along 

the Euphrates from the vilayets of Erzurum and Kharput.  Here the 

dying are thrown into deep pits, but more often, burned. They rarely 

have to be buried." In other words, he justified himself: "It's not 

us who throw the corpses of Armenians into the river, it's others who 

obediently burn them."

Burying so many people was no easy task, and who would do it? We 

couldn't even find anyone who would pay for it. And the stench of 

rotting corpses on the roads was unbearable and dangerous. I don't 

want to offend your tender soul by describing these cruel scenes, Mr. 

Kocharyan, they are truly inhumane. There were people who every day 

selected groups of 500 Armenians gathered in the deserts of Der-Zor, 

took them to the "death camp" and hacked them to death with axes. 

Every day, for many days, months. There are witnesses. They even 

wrote the names of some of them. Can you count the names of those who 

were killed in the deserts? In monthly terms, the average is 15 

thousand. You want 1.5 million names. And if, for example, it is 

1,300,000 thousand, will it be suitable? What if it's 1,700,000 

thousand? You know these are intolerable facts. If If you are reading 

these lines, then I sympathize with you. If I were not sorry, I would 

send you materials.

But Truto Aras survived and the path to the post of Minister of 

Foreign Affairs in the government of Mustafa Kemal opened before him. 

It is possible to apply the diplomatic decision to get rid of the 

corpses in the matter of renouncing the memory of the corpses. As you 

can see, he succeeds in this too. Empires have extensive experience 

in internal and external memory-shaping policies. Although not 

everyone's memory is "washed". Sorry, Mr. Kocharyan, it seems to me 

that you are using the wrong words.  Sometimes words have meaning, 

don't they," asked Kharatyan in conclusion.