TURKISH ATROCITIES.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 137, 17 June 1926, Page 2

TURKISH ATROCITIES.

ACCORDING TO PLAN. Tsrribla Sufferings in Iraq. I suppose I ought to be hardened to “atrocities” by this time, for I have witnessed them in Macedonia, Crete, Albania, the Caucasian, Georgia, and Central Africa. In three of those countries the agents were Turks, in one they were Russians, and in the last Portuguese (writes Mr Henry W. Ncvinson in the Labour “Daily Herald”). If experience hardens, it is time I were callous. Yet a pamphlet has lately appeared that ought to pierce the toughest hide. Is is called “The Unspeakable Turk Again,” and consists of messages sent to the ‘ ‘ Daily Chronicle” from the northern frontier of Iraq by Martin Donohoe, my former colleague in South African, Balkan, and Moroccan wars. They contain the results of his personal investigations among the crowds of wretched refugees who had succeded in escaping out of Turkish clutches across the ‘ ‘ Brussels line, ’ ’ the existing frontier Martin Donohoe’s report serves, as he says, only as a complement to the Laidoner report presented to the League of Nations a few months ago. He himself was assisted in the inquiry by highly educated Moslems, and throughout he is very careful to distinguish between the non-Turkish Moslems and the Turks. For many Moslems displayed generosity and compassion towards the refugees. At Zakho, the largest village of the district, he held the inquiry in the courtyard of Captain O ’Connor, commanding officer 0f the ,Iraq frontier force. Before giving evidence, each witness took an oath as a believer in God and the hope of salvation promised by Christ. They were chiefly the headmen of villages, sometimes a priest, sometimes a woman, but rarely; for it is always difficult to get the women to describe the brutalities they have suffered. The witnesses told the usual story to which we have known the Turks to their relation to Christian subjects are so well accustomed—the destruction of villages, the shooting or

hanging of the men, the defilement of \ the boys, the bayoneting of babies and j of women great with child, the selection of the good-looking girls and j young women for the officers’ tents, j the indiscriminate violation of the ! other women by the soldiers, the conj sequent deaths or madness. ... ■ All appears to -have gone according to | plan—according to Turkish plan, i lam hardened to atrocities, as I said, j and I have long made it a rule when \ hearing the accustomed tale to divide by at least two for fear of- exaggeration. But divide the stories of these j refugees by ten, and enough remains to prove that the Turk may change his I hat but does not change his skin. Give back any part of Iraq to the Turk, and we know exactly what will happen. I . care nothing for Mosul, and nothing for oil. I was always strongly opI posed to our advance up to the present I Iraq frontier, and even to the creai tien of the so-called Iraq kingdom, j But now that the advance has, onI happily, been made, I know for a certainty that we cannot withdraw in face j of the Turks without exposing thou- | sands of helpless villagers to exactly i such treatment as Martin Donohoe has | described I know what 1 people will say about “humanity with an eye to oil.” Let them say!