How billionaire Koç, richest Turkish, became rich confiscating Armenian property
Property is theft, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon said. The Turkish government of Kemal Attaturk, the leader of ‘modern’ Turkey and its predecessors of the rotten late Ottoman ‘Empire’ knew how to apply this rule very well. It is not far from reality that the whole ‘modern’ history of Turkey and their predecessors is a history of stealing properties. Turkish modern history is the history of committing Genocides, and at the same time Stealing and Confiscating the properties of non-Turkish citizens’ properties.
The genocide and confiscation of properties of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and , recently Kurds. Kemal Ataturk’s genocide of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians were the first modern examples that Adolf Hitler used in Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews and confiscate their property.
All these are well known and documented. This blood-stained wealth from stolen properties did not go to the poor Turkish people, who are still, 100 years after the ‘Turkish revolution’ the poorest, Europe-related nation, in GDP per capita (just 8,500 USD/capita, 10% lower than Bulgarian GDP, and 60% lower than Greek GDP/capita). This property, that has been confiscated by the exterminated Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians were passed to Kemal Attaturk, and his close friends. A small circle of Turks kept the wealth of the new nation for themselves. The remaining Turks, remained impoverished, without education and wealth, keeping only …red flags and photographs of Kemal Ataturk!
While Kemal Attaturk had an obsession living in wealthy mansions, he felt comfortably that the remaining Turkish compatriots to stay in shanty towns! This was and still is the problem of Turkish ‘democracy’: oppression of the poor, genocides, confiscation of the properties of citizens of other ethnicity and the most uneven distribution of wealth in Europe (42 vs 20-30 in EU countries).
The story of Koç family
Koç Holding, is the richest and the only Turkish company on the Fortune Global 500 list.Vehbi Koç was born on July 20, 1901, in Ankara. After the Kasapyan family escaped the Armenian Genocide, his father in 1923 took over the immense property of the confiscated by Kemal, Kasapyan family, a huge vineyard estate located in Keçiören district near Ankara, and built based on this property his ’empire’. His father Koçzade Mustafa Rahmi Efendi handed over his company, Koçzade Mustafa Rahmi, to Vehbi Koç in 1926. Based on this property he became the Ankara representative of Ford and Standard Oil (Mobil) and went into the contracting business.
How the property of the Armenian Kasapyan family was stolen by Turkey and was given to Koc
Koc was not responsible for the Armenian genocide, just grabbed the wealth that the Ottoman empire and the Turkish government has stolen. In 1915 The Ottoman Empire started the Armenian genocide and the confiscation of all Armenian properties, that was completed until 1923 by Kemal Attaturk himself. Ohannes Kasapian (also referred as ‘Kasabian’ by transliterating Armenian to English) thanks to his connections to German rail, as a billionaire escaped death and escaped to Konstantinople (Istanbul). However, he never recovered anything from his confiscated property! As his grandson Edward Kuhaci made known to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, that never published his letter, as the historian Fairchild Raggles refers on p. 174 of his book ‘On Location, Heritage Cities and Cites’.
In other words, it didn’t cost a penny to the Turkish state to buy the Armenian property. they simply have stolen it!
The Genocide and Confiscation of properties
It is well known and documented that the confiscation of Armenian properties by the Ottoman and Turkish governments, that was the model later for Adolf Hitler’s Germany, involved seizure of the assets, properties and land of the country’s Armenian community. It started in 1915, peaked during the Armenian Genocide, the confiscation of the Armenian property lasted continuously until the Istanbul pogrom of 1955 and with renewed efforts in 1974. In particulat they started on 16 May 1915, through a directive entitled “administrative instruction regarding movable and immovable property abandoned by Armenians deported as a result of the war and unusual political circumstances.” The directive established special commissions, known as the “Abandoned Property Commissions” (Emvâl-i Metrûke İdare Komisyonları) and “Liquidation Commissions” (Tasfiye Komisyonu), which were tasked with appraising the value of assets “abandoned”. After the ‘departure’ of the deportees, goods and livestock that were deemed “perishable” were prioritized as the first items that must be sold using public auctions. The map shows the areas the Armenians were exterminated.
How they stole the property in the period 1915-1923
On 29 May 1915, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) Central Committee passed the Tehcir Law authorizing the deportation of “persons judged to be a threat to national security.” The Tehcir Law emphasized that the deportees must not sell their assets, but instead provide a detailed list and submit the list to the local authorities: ‘Leave all your belongings—…On your return, you will get everything you left behind.’ The “Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation” was published in many newspapers throughout the Ottoman Empire and an example of one such publication, a 23 October 1915 issue of the English language Turkish newspaper The Orient, is provided in the photos previously in this article. While the Tehcir law was being carried out, the Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Refugees (Iskan-i Asairin Muhacirin Muduriyeti), passed a further directive for implementation of the law on 8 November. The objectives of the laws were simultaneously to reduce Armenian property ownership, enrich national politicians, and to resettle Turkish Muslim refugees in property which was seized.
Of course, none of the Turkish leaders ever apologised to their people and to the humanity for the genocide and related crimes of the Turkish state.
