THE PLANNED GENOCIDE OF THE TURKS OF WESTERN THRACE Prof. Dr Ata ATUN Near East University and SAMTAY FOUNDATION Key words Western Thrace, West, Thrace, Greece, Turkish Minority, Turkish, Minority, Genocide, Human Rights, IKSAREN, International Crime, History
Ethnic Cleansing,
Introduction When the Lausanne Agreement was signed the Turkish population, including the Pomak Turks were more in number proportionally than the Greek, Bulgarian, Armenian and Jewish population. The Turkish population numbered around 129,120 in the area, and was 67% of the population. Today is 40% of the population. Despite the fact that the rate of population increase was around 2.8%, due to constant emigration the population did not increase and the result of this is that they became a minority in the area. The land ownership in Western Thrace has also dramatically changed. Whilst in 1923 the land ownership by Turks was 84%, they now only own between 20 and 40%. Throughout the years the area has been subjected to a ruthless genocide by Greece. The place of western Thrace in history During the period around two thousand years before Christ the first inhabitants of Thrace were the (1) Indo-European Traks (Thracians). (2) After the end of the 8th century BC to the start of the 7th century BC the area was under the sovereignty of the Peni, Ancient Greeks and Macedonians, and until 355 BC was ruled by the Kingdom of Thrace. After that, coming under the rule of the Empires of Rome(5) and Byzantine,(6) Western Thrace was first included in the boundaries of the Roman (7) and after that the Byzantine Empires. (8) After the conquest of these lands by The Ottoman Empire in 1354 the lands came within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire (9), who ruled there for 559 years. Between the years of 1913 – 1920 Western Thrace came under the occupation of the allies. In 1923, in accordance with the Lausanne Agreement (10) it was left to Greece. The first presence of Turks in Western Thrace began with the „Western front‟ who emigrated there from Central Asia and the İskit Turks who arrived there in the 2nd Century. (11) It continued with the Hun Turks in the 4th Century, (12) The Avar Turks in the 5th Century, (13) the Patzinak Turks in the 9th Century (14) and continued with the Kuman (Cuman) Turks (15) in the 11th Century. During the 560 years that Western Thrace was part of the sovereign land of the Turks from the 1360s till it was handed over to the Greeks by the main / big European countries after many machinations and without firing one shot in the area, in May 1920, no other nation was sovereign over the lands and they stayed Turkish. Western Thrace is so Turkish that the first Independent State (16) was founded on these lands in 1913. On the 25th /26th January 1990, under the crescent and moon and star decorated ceiling in the building where the Western Thrace Turkish State was declared (17)on 31st August 1913, Sadık Ahmet (18) and İbrahim Şerif (19) were arrested , tried and sentenced to 18 months in prison because they said they were „ Turks‟(20). For centuries, as the land of Western Europe and especially Western Thrace is very productive, many tribes have poured into the area. Due to this productivity Western Thrace has changed hands many times throughout the centuries. However it is the Turks who have lived and developed the area the longest .Today if we take into account the Turks living in Western Thrace, we will see that the Turks have lived on these lands continually for about 2100 years. (21) Greece, as it does everywhere and claiming that the whole world is of the „Hellenic „ race, also rejects the ethnic identity of the Turks of Western Thrace, and claims that there is a „‟Muslim Minority‟‟ as stated in the Lausanne Agreement . However, the title of the migration agreement, signed in addition to the treaty is „The Exchange of the Turkish and Greek population‟‟. Furthermore, the report prepared by the League of Nations (22) (the United Nations of the period) on 5th March 1925 in Genève is entitled „‟ Minority in 1