Armenian massacre/genocide.

Whether you refer to it as a massacre, or you believe that those responsible for the mass killings were in fact willing to systematically wipe the Armenians out as an ethnic/religious group, it does not matter to me. However, it is frustrating when those responsible for the crimes are referred to as ‘Muslim Turks’ or ‘Ottoman Turks’. We don’t refer to the right-wing nationalists responsible for the Holocaust as Germans but as Nazis. Just as it is in the case of the Holocaust, the ones responsible for the mass killings of Armenians were secular nationalists who belonged to the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress); also known as the Young Turks. The leaders of the committee lead a rebellion against the final Ottoman Emperor Sultan Abdulhamid II. Although the Empire’s name still remained as the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan had no political power.

From a detailed article on the historical events concerning the Armenian mass killings; written by historian Raymond Kevorkian:

” …The single-party regime that was established in January 1914 gave the CUP full powers and led to the first decisions of the Central Committee that aimed to eradicate the Greeks and Armenians, the last two non-Turkish groups who carried some weight, particularly economic, in the Empire.

1914; January 3: Nomination of Ismail Enver to the post of Minister of War by the ten members of the Central Committee (CC) of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Opposition is eliminated. Single-party rule is established, controlled by a majority of young officers. ** (Turfan, 2000: 348).

1914; January 7: 280 high-ranking officers and a total of 1,100 officers of the Ottoman Army are “immediately dismissed” and replaced by officers affiliated with the Young Turk party, who then take control of the army. ** (Turfan, 2000: 348)

1914; January 30: The Young Turk daily Ikdam denies claims that there is a plan “whose objective is to remove Armenians from the provinces they inhabit and to deport them to Mesopotamia […] [in order to] establish Armenia Muslims who can unify with other Muslims of the Caucasus and form a serious resistance to Slavic encroachments.” ** (Kévorkian, 2006: 306).

1914; February-June: The Young Turk Central Committee puts in place in the course of several secret meetings a “plan to homogenize” Anatolia and to liquidate its “non-Turkish concentrations”. This plan aimed above all the expulsion of the Greeks from Thrace and Anatolia, particularly the Aegean coastal areas or to “move them to the interior” by the spring of 1914. It also recommended the transfer of the Armenian population to Syria and Mesopotamia. *** (Akçam, 2004: 144-150; Dündar, 2006: 190-220 and Kutay, 1962: 60-63)… . “

(To read more http://www.massviolence.org/Article?id_article=110&artpage=2#outil_sommaire_2)