Athanassios PITSOULIS
Population transfers have throughout history served governments as an instrument to achieve national or regime security objectives. Population exchanges are a special case of such transfers. Here, states enter an intergovernmental agreement in which the contracting parties decide on a reciprocal voluntary or involuntary transfer of populations. The perhaps most crucial precedent for such a measure is the Greco-Turkish population exchange agreed at Lausanne in 1923. The present paper recalls the events that led to the agreement, which essentially legitimised expost one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes of its time in order to solve the thorny Greco-Turkish minority problem once and for all. Relying mainly on the conference protocols I argue that the compulsory nature of the ex-change was imposed under duress, but against the wishes of the affected minorities, and in clear violation of the nascent international system of human rights.
Keywords: Eastern Question – Greco-Turkish War – Greece – Lausanne Conference –Ottoman Empire – Population Exchanges – Turkey
Ottoman Empire – Population Exchanges – Turkey
1. Introduction
“When the formula of political nationality is applied to mixed populations where nationality is hard to disentangle from profession or class,an irreducible residuum of minorities is bound to be left on the wrong side of the definitive frontier lines, and this residuum is a fruitful cause of estrangement. Each nation fears that its own hostages in the other’s territory may be ill-treated, and that the other’s hostages in the own territory may undermine its sovereignty, and such expectations have a fatal tendency to real-ise themselves.”1
Population transfers have throughout history served governments as an instrument to achievenational or regime security objectives like power consolidation, the creation of ethnic or religious homogeneity, control over security-relevant 1 T OYNBEE, The Western Question 322f.areas, etc. Population exchanges are a special case of such transfers. Here, states carry out a transaction that essentially consists of an intergovernmental agreement in which the contract-ing parties decide on a reciprocal voluntary or involuntary transfer of populations. Agreements of this kind “correct” the allocation of citizens to nation states according to the wishes of the con tracting parties and fall into a special category of state-imposed forced migration.
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The perhaps most crucial precedent for such ameasure is the Greco-Turkish population ex-change agreed at Lausanne in 1923. It put an end measure is the Greco-Turkish population ex-change agreed at Lausanne in 1923. It put an end change agreed at Lausanne in 1923. It put an end to more than two thousand years of Greek histo-ry in Anatolia and thus represents an important turning point in European history. The Greco-Turkish population exchange agreement also represents a legal and political watershed which has had a profoundly negative effect on the in-ternational community’s tolerance of forced
migration.[1]