Four days later, on May 30, the Ottoman Council of Ministers confirmed the necessity of deportation but gave the law a semblance of fair play approving provisions
- to safeguard the person and possession of the deportees until they had reached their destination and to forbid any form of persecution;
- to compensate the deportees with new property, land, and goods necessary for a comfortable life;
- to permit Moslem refugees to inhabit the abandoned villages only after having officially recorded the value of the homes and land and making clear that the property still belonged to the legal owners;
- to sell or rent those fields, properties, and goods not settled by Moslem refugees and to keep in the treasury, in the owner's name, an account of the derived income, after first deducting administrative expenses;
- to authorise the finance minister to create special committees to supervise these transactions and to publish circulars pertaining to the compensations for the properties and their protection;
- to oblige all officials to comply with the law and report to the government during the course of its fulfilment. 53
This law was a travesty in view of what actually took place; the Armenians were never informed of its existence, and the rights it granted them were repeatedly and flagrantly violated.
The Turkish historian, Hikmet Bayur, while contending that the Armenians were untrustworthy, has written that Talaat had begun the deportations prior to the formal approval of the Ottoman Council of Ministers. Afraid that opposition to his measures might arise in government circles, Talaat manoeuvred to confront the cabinet with a fait accompli, but, not wishing to bear the full responsibility for his actions, the Minister of Interior requested official concurrence. 54 Any misgivings that Talaat may have felt seem to have been unfounded, for, on May 27, prior to the general decree on deportation, the Council of Ministers accepted the following disposition, which appeared five days later in the official journal, Takvim-i Vekayi:
- If in time of war, the commanders of the armies, army corps, and divisions, or their replacements, as well as the commanders of independent military posts, who are subjected to an attack or to armed resistance from the populace, or who discover, under any form whatsoever, opposition to the orders of the Government or acts and measures of the defence of the state and the safeguarding of public order, are authorised and ordered to suppress them immediately and vigorously by armed force and to ruthlessly squelch the attack and resistance.
- The commanders of the army, army corps, and divisions, can if military needs demand, remove and settle in other localities, individually or together, the populations of cities and villages who are suspected of being guilty of treason or espionage.
- This law is in force from the moment of its publication. 55
Thus, suspicion alone was sufficient reason to deport "individually or together… cities and villages."
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