The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-03-29
Priest and Followers Hacked to
Pieces and Cast Into "a Trench
They Were Forced to Dig.
TALE OF A MURDEROus KURD
BY THE FIENDIsHNEss OF
THE TURKISH SOLDIERS.
No Method of Death Too Cruei or Re-
voifing for the Porfe's HircIings
Other Foreign News.

LONDON. March 29-The Times publishes
long report on the Armenian atrocities.
written by a competent and Trustworthy
man. who made personal investigation on
the spot. This report was written in jan
uary, but only arrived in London yesterday.
The writer says he is convinced that both
in 1898 and 1891 the Turkish government
gave both oral and written orders 10 the
Kurds TO attack the Armenlans. promising
them the booty and relieving them of re-
sponsbility for the consequences. In the
first attack made on them the Armenians
defeated the Kurds Undoubtedly but for
Turkish help the Kurds would have been
unable to have gained a permanent victory.
The Kurds in the earlier skirfnishes did
not harm women and children. Even when
melted by the Turks they did little in COM
parison with the latter.
The. account proceeds to confirm the pit
incident. and the report of the Governor
of Bitlis reading at Djellyegoozan the Sui
tan's 6rman ordering the Kurds 10 destroy
the disaffected villages. sparing nothing for
their Sultan and prophet. This occurred
about the middle of August and the mas
sacre which followed beggars all descrip-
ton. The Occidentals of the nineteenth
century cannot comprehend 1t. Youths were
bound, covered with brushwood and burned
alive. Others were hacked TO pieces. At
Shenig house filed with fifty men, women
and children was set on fire and all were
crenlated The officers forced their men to
acts of cruelty from which the latter
shrunk. A young priest at Dalvorin per-
suaded seventy of his followers to yield.
They. were ordered TO dig trench and
when enough earth had been thrown up all
were hacked to pieces and cast into the
r,.,o -.,ffa 10 Loaf
One was thrown into the air and allowed TO
fall on a number of bayonets that had been
stuck upright into the ground.
Commenting editorally on this report. the
Times admits that owing to the obstacles
Turkey has thrown into the way, the re-
port, from which the most revolving details
have been excluded, lacks the qualities de-
manded by the scientist and historian, bur
when Turkey has had the benefit of every
consideration that research. crippled by her
own action, allows us to conceive, the incl
dent goes unanswered and assails the en-
tire System Of Turkish rule.
A correspondent investigating the circum-
stances of the atrocities perpetrated
Armenia recently teiegraphed another yer-
sion of the story concerning the death pit
at Djellyegoozan. He said that the refu-
gees on Mount Andok We're inveigled back
t. the village on the assurance that the
authorities desired to re-establish peace in
the district. Hearing this, priest Ohannes
" Z with about three hundred persons to
She camp, where they were well received.
They were asked to remain few hours In
the camp Meanwhile soldiers were busy
digging a pit behind the house of a village
elde, 4 man named Bedo. At O'Clock in
the ey eniag priest Ohannes taken. the
cross and the gospel were flung at his feet
aI.d he was ordered by the Turkish officer
to trampIe on them. He refused, and the
officer ordered the soldiers to gouge out his
eyes. Then they gave him pocket hand
kerchief and commanded him to dance.
Next Armenians We're distributed among
the soldiers and killed with bayonets and
flung into the pit, dead or dying. The only
two Armenians of the party who escaped
were a merchant named Avak and Pla
Ohan Zoroyan, the latter getting away
after he had received twelve bayonet
wounds.
The correspondent attached great inpor-
tance to the statements of "a Kurd, who
killed many innocent women and children
in Sassoun," and with whom he exchanged
daggers" The correspondent took this
mans deposition before respectable nom
Armenian witnesses, and from this deposit
ton he telegraphed the following blood
curlling extracts: .The Turkish soldiers
them against stones. 1 saw an Armenian
priest with soldiers torturing him, squeez-
ing his neck, gouging out his eyes and tear
ing off his flesh with pineers. We hate
that; we only stab or bayonet or cut off
heads We dislike needless pain. / saw q
Turkish sergeant bind an old Armenian
head downward to two or three branches
and slowly cut him through with an AK
Armenians who mplored protection and
surrendered were butchered at night l saw
ii done The soldiers stood in double line
OF three on each side. The Armenians were
marched in. their hands tied. and they were
then bayoneted and flung into the pit Not
all were dead who were in the pit. saw
soldiers take a woman and stand around
her Joking and making bets as TO the sex
of her unborn child. She was then cut
open and the money was paid to the scoun-,
dreI who had guessed rightly"
The correspondent telegraphed the de-
tails of this revolving deed, but the papers
suppressed them as being too horrible for
publication. Continuing, the Kurd said:
1.-THE Kurds killed people with bullets and
daggers but the soldiers delighted in tor
ture. They put some to death with scissors.
cutting them and opening veins in the
neck Others We're sawed; others had the
tongue cut out, eyes gouged out and sew
eral finers cut off before death. I saw men
and women thus mutilated. and they lay
about the camp for two hours before they
were killed"
The Daily News this morning also pub
fishes a long account from Turkish source
confirming the stories of the Armenian out
RACES. Editorially IL says: ''The bare facts
viii have their natural effect on all who
are responsible for our relations with
power which is the very negation OF God"
FRANCE WARNED.