WHAT THE POWERS ARE ASKING.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVII, Issue 2402, 7 January 1895, Page 2

WHAT THE POWERS ARE ASKING.

THE ARMENIAN QUESTION'. ' By Telegraph,—Press Association. — Copyright. Received January 6,6 p.m. Constantinople, January 5. Turkey-has appealed to the Powers to moderate the British and Russian demands respecting Armenia, SOME PARTICULARS OP A FEARFUL MASSACRE. Mr G-. Hagopian, chairman of the Armenian Patriotic Association, has sent Lord Kimberley the following letter, along with a memorial begging that Armenia should be given a new administration worked under the immediate supervision of the Berlin Treaty Powers : “ ‘ Bitlis, October 9. 1894.—Y0u have queried as to -soldiers being at Moush, and so bringing cholera. Prudence hints brevity and an indirect route. Our chief magnate seems like another Nero. _ Last year great things were going oh in*the mountains south of Moush. Though only a few Nationalists seem to have been there, a battle took place in their self-defence, the magnate got his medal from Constantinople as having wiped out a big rebellion. This year a few more Nationalists, perhaps 10 to 15, were said to be there. The loading Sheikh was forced to set the ball rolling to escape a trap for himself. The Kurds made a dash and carried off oxen of ■ Armenians; the latter find their oxen, one just killed, and beg. the Kurds to give them the live one ; this not being done, a fight ensues, in which two Kurds are killed and three wounded. The Kurds at once carried their dead down to Moush and threw them down - before -the Government, saying Armenian'; soldiers have overrun the land, killing and plundering them, Ac. This furnished the' desired pretext for massing troops from far and near, cholera or no cholera.' Erzingan (?), pasha of soldiers, made a desperate race on, the marshal coming a little later; the pasha is said to have hung from his breast, after reading it to his soldiers, an order from Constantinople, to cut the Armenians up, root and branch, adjuring them to do so if they loved their King and Government. Nearly all these things are related here and there by the soldiers who participated in the horrible carnage, some of them weeping, claiming that the Kurds did more, and declaring that what they did was to obey orders. Others have; said that a hundred fell to each of them to dispose of. No compassion was shown to age or. sex, even by the regular soldiery, not even when their victims fell suppliant at their feet, Six to ten thousand met such a fate as even the darkest ages of darkened Africa have hardly witnessed, for there women and tender babes might have at least the chance of a life of slavery, while here womanhood and innocenoy were but a cruel mockery before the cruel lust had ended its debauch by stabbing to death with the bayonet, while tender babes were impaled with ■ the same weapon on their dead mothers’ breasts, or perhaps seized by the, hair, to have the head lopped off by the sword. In one place three or four hundred women, after being forced to serve the vile purposes of a merciless soldiery, were hacked to pieces by sword and bayonet in a valley below. In another place some 200,'weep- : ing and wailing, begged for compassion, falling at the commander’s feet, but the bloodthirsty wretch, after ordering their violation, directed the solders to despatch them in a similar way. , In another place some fid young brides and more-attractive, girls were crowded into a church, and after violation were slaughtered, and'-human gore was seen flowing from the church door. In another place a largo company, under the lead ■ of . their priest, fell down before them begging compassion, averring that they had nothing to do with the culprits, but all to no purpose —all were killed. In another place proposition was made, to several of the more attractive -women to change their faith, in which case their lives might be spared. “ Why should we deny Christ ?” they say : “we are up more than these,” pointing to the mangled forms of their husbands and brothers before them, “ kill us too ” —and they did. Great effort was • made to save one, the beauty .but three or four quarrelled over her, and she sank down like her sisters. But why prolong the sickening tale ? There must be’a God in Heaven who 1 will do right in all these matters, or some of us would lose faith. One or more consuls have been ordered that way to investigate. If Christians instead of Turks had reported these things in the oityof Bitlis and the region where 1 have been touring, the case would be different, but now we are compelled to believe most of it. Now the magnate is having papers and trying to compel Christians to sign them, expressing satisfaction that justice has been dealt out to rebels, and thanking the king and the magnate himself. Christians hero in Bitlis do not sign, though it is said'.that in'the outiying districts some 1 have' signed. It hag not yet been offered to the Protestants, and as yet Protestants havb not ‘ been thrust into chains or blackmailed ‘ very much, though lately things are beginning to look that way.’ ', “Another letter says;—‘The manner even as reported by regular soldiers themselves, some of whom admit of having disposed of 100 persons, is most fiendishrape, followed by the bayonet, 20 to 30 villages- wholly destroyed,: some people burned'with kerosene, in ' .'their own houses.’ ” , LORD KIMBERLEY’S REPLY. : . Lord Kimberley has replied' that the Government have learnt with;satisfaction of the commission of investigation. Her Majesty’s Ambassador'at Constantinople is impressing on the Porte the importance of avoiding delay and of making the, investigation thoroughly searching and impartial HOW OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS READ. An official account published at Constantinople, lays the blame- on the Armenians themselves, saying “Some Armenian brigands, provided with arms of foreign origin, joined an insurgent Kurd tribe for the. purpose of committing'outrages, and they burned and devastated several Mussulman villages. To give an idea of the ferocity of these Armenian bands, it is reported that, among other abominable crimes, they, burned alive a Mussulman notable. • ■

“ Regular troops wore sent to the scene to>protect the peaceable inhabitants from these depredations. The Ottoman troops not only protected and respe'oted the submissive portion of the population, as well' 1 as the women and children, but -reestablished order and tranquillity to the general satisfaction. It is .not true that the Kurds" seized the furniture, effects, and cattle of the fugitive Armenians. The latter took their property into the mountains' before breaking out into revolt and confided them to the care of their Kurdish acolytes. The Armenian women at present with the Kurds belong to the families of the brigands, and went of .their own accord with their husbands to the insurgent Kurds. .

“As regards the Armenian villages which are said to have been , destroyed, it was the Armenians who carried off all their belongings, from their own villages before giving themselves up -to brigandage.” - A second Constantinople version, though also described as official, attributes quite a different cause to the .disturbances, which seem •to have occurred end of August. The Turkish authorities, according to this ver;ion,..'declare that the disorders were merely ‘ due to the refusal of the Armenian peasants to pay the tithes. It would appear that the Vali of the place, fearing a rising, summoned a detachment of Kurdish'troops. The latter were met on their arrival <by a body of armed Armenians, who resisted them, whereupon they fired upon the Armenians, killing and wounding many of them. The Armenians, however, maintained that the Kurds, without any invaded the village, set-fire to the Houses; massacred the people, apd committed various acts of piilag?. ' 1 ' ';■