THE FIRST SASUN REVOLT

THE FIRST SASUN REVOLT

Sasun was a famous town its revolts. Sasun is a district of City of Siirt administratively and it is about 14 hours far from Mus. It is nearby Mutki and Garzan districts. Since its land is mountainous and steep, it is far from the government influence. The habitants including the Armenians spoke Zaza and Kurdish. A census was not fulfilled at that time; nevertheless, it was estimated that one fifth of the inhabitants were Armenian and the rest of it were Kurdish people.

In these regions in 1890�s, an Armenian called Mahran Damadyan travelled around for three years and tried to make the Armenians revolt, by propagating and provoking. Upon the information given by the Sasun Armenians Damadyan was caught and brought to Istanbul to be tried and then he was set free.

The Sasun revolt was arranged by the Hinçak Committee solely to invite the intervention of the foreign countries and was fulfilled through the mediation of Murad (Kamparsun Boyaciyan).

Murad was supported and aided by the Tashnak Committee to go to Sasun by passing through Caucasus. As soon as he arrived in Sasun, he gathered some of the Armenians and started to prepare the revolt plans.

In fact, this revolt, which was fulfilled for the attraction of the foreign intervention by the Armenian committees and the patriarchate as being bloody and violent was announced in various capitals of Europe, the meetings, the declarations in the parliaments. The responsibility, which was assumed by Britain through the Cyprus agreement, was mentioned everywhere.

English Consul to Van City, Holward wanted to go to Sasun for investigation; but since the government considered him as the provocative of the revolt, he was not allowed to. After very long correspondences. The Ottoman Goverment accepted the request that the consuls situated in Erzurum, namely France, Britain and Russia participated to the Ottoman research commission. The commission made investigation for six months, from 4 January to 21 July 1895, and held 108 meetings, and listened to more than 190 witnesses. Omer Bey from the committee was appointed for the post of Vice Governor of Bitlis. So he had to leave the commission on 29 January. On 23 August Murad, the leader of the revolt, was arrested.

The Armenians had a lot of hopes concerning the Sasun revolt. They thought that, in case of a revolt in Sasun, Europe would intervene immediately, the demands of the Armenians would be supplied and considerable benefits would be obtained.

In order to continue the revolt, Hinchaks collected a great amount of money in Istanbul and in the provinces through the tickets, which bore the seal of the committee.

It would be sufficient to read the article published in the American newspaper, New York Herald, which can not be accused of not being neutral concerning how the incident took place.

�The European investigation showed that the Armenians revolted with the assistance of the provocateurs who came from foreign countries. The rebels did everything with the modern weapons. In addition to arson, murder and the pillage, they revolted against the regular soldiers and resisted them and than they retreated to the mountains. The interrogation committee established that by sending soldiers against the rebels, the Ottoman government used its most legal right. These soldiers were able to defeat these rebels only after bloody fights. About 3 thousand fully armed rebels, who sheltered in the mountains, could not be defeated by convincing words, and articles in the newspapers.

3000 Armenians gathered in Mount Anduk. 500-600 of them wanted to besiege Mus district. With this objective, they attacked the Delican tribe in the south of Mus. They killed some of them and pillaged their properties. The belief of the Muslims, whom they caught, was despised and the Muslims were killed violently. These rebels attacked at the regular soldiers near Mus, too. However, because of the great number of the soldiers there, they could not occupy Mus district.

The rebels organized the gangs with the ones in Mount Anduk. These gangs committed awful murders and plundered. They burned the nephew of Ömer Agha alive. They raped the Muslim women in the region, which was three-four hours far from to Gulli Guzat village and strangled.

They picked out the eyes and cut the ears of most of the Muslims. The Muslims were insulted severely and shamefully and were forced to be converted to Christianity and to kiss the Cross.

Towards the end of August, the Armenians attacked the Kurdish people near Mus and burnt the Gülli Güzat village. As to the 3000 Armenian rebels in Talori, after terrorising and making the Muslims and the Christians mourn, they refused to abandon their weapons and continued to pillage and murder. Then army soldiers were sent to these places to prevent these atrocities.

Hamparsun, who was one of the rebels, escaped to the high mountains with eleven accomplices. He was caught alive. Nevertheless two men of his men were killed and six of them were wounded. At the end of August all of the rebellion gangs were dispersed.

The Turks treated the women, children, old people, the disabled in accordance with the Islamic and humanistic norms. The rebels, who died, were the ones who refused to surrender and preferred to fight against the legal sovereignty.

REFERENCE:
Uras, Esat, Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi, Istanbul, 1987,pp.471-477