Istanbul: Armenian Gezi: the occupation of the Camp Armen orphanage

By ZEYNEP KARATAŞ,

For the past fortnight, activists have occupied the former Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church Foundation’s orphanage — in the Tuzla suburb at the far eastern reaches of İstanbul — in an effort to save the symbolic building from destruction.

The building has been abandoned since the 1980s after being usurped by the Turkish state, but for the past two weeks, busloads of visitors have been making their way to the remote location to save it — and the parcel of land it sits on — from the likelihood that it will be transformed into luxury villas.

Bulldozers arrived at the scene on May 6 and successfully demolished one part of the desolate building, but the diggers were halted after the particularly persuasive efforts of two men: Garabet (Garo) Paylan, a parliamentary candidate for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of Armenian descent, and former resident of the orphanage Garabet Orunöz.

Paylan discussed the events of May 6 during the “100 Years of Policies of Denial and Apology” conference held at Boğaziçi University on Tuesday. “The man with the bulldozer said: ‘Brother, why are you getting in the way of us doing our job? We have the permit to do so, so please step aside and let us knock it down.’ But we explained to him that this is an Armenian church foundation’s orphanage and that it was seized from them,” said Paylan. “Hrant Dink, Rakel Dink and [HDP parliamentarian] Erol Daya lived here, and this [place contains] their memories. We explained to him it is the right of orphans to have this building.” And so, Paylan explained, the construction worker was convinced and said he had no right to demolish the home of orphans. The orphanage, also known as Camp Armen, was opened in 1963, built in part through the efforts of the orphans who lived there.

One of the reasons the orphanage holds such symbolic importance is due to the fact that assassinated journalist Hrant Dink spent his summers there as a youth, and was later a counselor at the camp. Dink was the founding editor-in-chief of Agos, a Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper. He was one of the leading figures in the trials attempting to the retrieve the ownership of the parcel of land the orphanage sits on and was generally a dynamic and influential leader for the Turkish Armenian population. Dink was murdered outside the Agos newspaper’s headquarters on Jan. 19, 2007.

Armenians are a minority in Turkey, and lost a significant portion of their population on the soil of the former Ottoman Empire because of the massacres against the demographic that took place during World War I. While Armenians made up a little over 5 percent of the total population of the Ottoman Empire, Armenians living in Turkey today make up a small minority group ranging from an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 citizens out of the country’s population of 75 million. Although Turkey faces calls from international communities to recognize the events of 1915 as genocide, the Turkish state has a strict policy of opposing such a notion.

Usurpation of minority groups’ property

During Tuesday’s “100 Years of Policies of Denial and Apology” conference, Yetvart Danzikyan, the current editor-in-chief of the Agos weekly newspaper, explained his interpretation of the oppression Armenians have faced on Anatolian soil and how this extends to the issue of the orphanage.

“The transfer of possession of properties was the third leg of the genocide, and this continued throughout the history of the [Turkish] republic [founded in 1923]. Therefore, this issue does not just remain in 1915, even what we see happening now at the camp in Tuzla is a continuation of this process,” said Danzikyan.

He explained the measures that were taken to disincline Armenians who had survived the massacres and deportations of 1915 from returning to their property after the founding of the republic.

In 1936, in the Law of Foundations, a property declaration was passed which eradicated the right of non-Muslim foundations to acquire property and paved the way for the state to confiscate their fixed assets, according to the study published by the Hrant Dink Foundation entitled, “2012 Declaration: the Seized Properties of Armenian Foundations in İstanbul.”

Almost 40 years later, in 1974, the Supreme Court of Appeals passed another discriminatory declaration. It decreed that all properties acquired by minority religious foundations had no legal validity and were to be returned to their former owners. In the aftermath of the 1980 coup d’etat, the orphanage’s founder and supervisor, clergyman Hrant Güzelyan, was accused of raising militant Armenians and became the victim of torture. After a series of legal battles, the foundation was, by 1986, forced off of the parcel of land. The orphanage was then returned to the family it was bought from and has since been sold several times. After a string of sales, the current owner is the parcel’s ninth owner, Fatih Ulusoy.

Although a decree was passed in Parliament, in 2011, to return to minorities any properties confiscated by the government, it doesn’t help the people watching over Camp Armen night and day since the property is not in the government’s possession, but in private hands. Ulusoy has agreed to halt the demolition for now, and is open to negotiations for a solution that would enable him not to lose the monetary value of his investment.

The winds of Gezi

Today’s Zaman visited the camp last Saturday and was greeted with a large banner that read in Armenian script, “Armenians, welcome to Camp Armen” signed by Nor Zartonk, a civil society group representing Turkey’s Armenian community. The group has been occupying the grounds night and day since the day the bulldozers arrived and have hosted forums and workshops, held concerts, screened films and even staged a theatrical production.

Crowds flooded to the scene in shuttle buses arranged by the organization to attend the full schedule of events taking place at the camp. In the morning, Ani Balıkçı, the mother of Sevag Balıkçı, gave a beginner’s level Armenian language class. Turkish-Armenian Sevag Balıkçı was 25 years old when he was shot dead, in what official reports from military commanders claim was an accident, while performing his mandatory military service in 2011. The young man’s family and human rights activists believe the killing was deliberate. Balıkçı’s murder occurred on April 24, 2011, and it was later revealed that the man responsible for his death was an ultranationalist.

Later on Saturday, Rakel Dink, the widow of Hrant, addressed the public. While her speech was melancholy, she ended it with a folk song about swallows building their nests — just as some of the orphans at Camp Armen had built their own.

Like Rakel Dink and Ani Balıkçı, many Armenian attendees that day had stories of their personal, ancestral pain related to the massacres of 1915. The small, isolated Armenian community in İstanbul has struggled to give voice to these stories for many years. Hrant Dink undeniably empowered his community in making the Armenian identity visible once more, until his assassination, which perpetuated even more attention toward the ongoing struggle of Armenians in the country. And though there is much to mourn, the camp has empowered the Armenian community once again.

Throughout last Saturday, halay dancing (festive Anatolian folk dancing) took place around a fig tree in the garden and the environment was imbued with a general air of merriment. Many commented on how pleasant it was to leave the chaos of İstanbul and find peace at the camp. A certain familiar air was present, the air of Gezi, many said, in reference to the occupation of Gezi Park in 2013, which led to nationwide demonstrations that eventually saved the park from destruction. For now, the fate of the parcel remains uncertain, but one thing that is sure is that the Armenian community will not leave it orphaned.

Source: TodayZaman