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EUROPE ATTACKS KURDS
Garbis Altinoglu
Collective Bellaciao
March 16 2010
Facts and Fallacies At 5 A.M. on March 4, Belgian police raided
the offices of ROJ TV, the voice of Kurdish people, BDP's European
office and several other addresses in Belgium. 30 people were taken
into custody, including Remzi Kartal and Zubeyir Aydar and several
journalists. Belgian media sources said around 300 officers took part
in raids in Brussels, Antwerp and other Belgian cities. The Belgian
police put hoods on the heads of Mr. Kartal, Mr. Aydar and their
comrades, dragged them and treated them as if they were dangerous
criminals. Computers and other equipment belonging to the ROJ TV were
damaged during the operation. Belgian authorities shut down ROJ TV to
the consternation of the Kurdish people. This so-called anti-terrorist
operation follows similar operations in Italy and France and seems
to be coordinated throughout Western Europe and actively encouraged
and supported by the United States and Turkey. Remzi Kartal and
Zubeyir Aydar, who were former members of the DEP (=Democracy Party)
and members of Turkish parliament had been compelled to leave their
country due to political repression and for the peaceful solution
of the "Kurdish problem". They had been conducting political and
diplomatic activities with regard to the national and democratic
rights of Kurdish people, who have suffered for decades under the
military yoke of Turkish reactionaries. The arrests Kartal and Aydar
and others are falsely presented as "an operation against terrorism".
In reality, however, it is an operation aimed at appeasing the
United States and Turkey, an operation against Kurdish people and its
democratic and national aspirations. Belgian and European authorities
have indicted the persons involved with training Kurdish youths with
"training them in camps" and providing the PKK with taking part in a
terrorist enterprise, financing terrorist activities and violating gun
laws, as well as drug-trafficking, people smuggling and extortion. In
so doing they are repeating the well-worn demagogic statements of
Turkish authorities, who themselves have been involved for years in
this sort of dirty work as documented times and again by international
agencies. (1) It is obvious that Belgian authorities could not
have decided upon such a drastic action by themselves alone. It is
highly probable that a Europe-wide consensus has been established
to crack down on Kurds. But, what is the political meaning of such
a move? Does it serve to the cause of the peaceful solution of the
"Kurdish problem"? Or does it serve the aggressive policies of Turkish
reactionaries, who insist on maintaining their despotic yoke over the
Kurdish people through white terror? Obviously it serves the latter.
Notwithstanding its very serious shortcomings, PKK is an organization
fighting against a despotic and reactionary state to ensure the basic
rights of oppressed Kurdish people and this is what counts. Besides,
it has strong and widespread support among the Kurdish population of
Turkey and the large Kurdish diaspora in Europe. Let's not forget
that, at the root of this conflict lies the barbaric repression of
Kurdish people by the Turkish state, which has blocked all its means
of peaceful resistance, until very recently denied its very existence
and banned the use of its mother tongue. One might not condone PKK's
political line and criticize its policies and some of its actions
and might even oppose its strategy and political line. This, however,
detracts nothing from the just and legitimate character of the struggle
of Kurdish people for their democratic and national rights.
Therefore leaving aside the legal technicalities and the not so
important details of this subject, one has to ask a simple question
and answer it in an honest and straightforward manner: Who are the
real terrorists? The PKK, Kurdish people OR the Turkish reactionaries
and militarists?
The original source of such accusations against the PKK is the Turkish
state itself. One cannot but be shocked by the extremely hypocritical
efforts of Turkish reactionaries to blame their own terrorist mentality
and practice on various peoples they have oppressed and massacred
and continue to oppress and massacre. The demagogy of Turkish
reactionaries, who have systematically practiced state terrorism,
matches only their barbarism. They are not content with the Kurdish
massacres they have conducted in the 1920s and 1930s; with denying
the existence of Kurdish nation, banning the use of Kurdish language
and suppressing Kurdish culture for decades; with their systematic
destruction of Kurdish intellectuals and other community leaders;
with evacuating millions of Kurdish peasants from their villages,
burning their houses and forests, killing their cattle and sheep;
with torturing and murdering of thousands of unarmed Kurdish people
and dumping of their remains into unidentified mass graves; with
posing with the heads of dead guerillas they have decapitated,
with desecrating the stripped bodies of dead women guerillas and
with heavily bombarding Kurdish towns. Despite all this, they still
complain of Kurdish terrorism!
It is the Kurdish people and Kurdish guerillas who have borne the brunt
of the fighting. According to the data provided by Turkish authorities,
more than 50,000 people have been killed as a result of armed clashes
between PKK guerillas and security forces and their Kurdish allies,
that is, the so-called Village Guards since 1984.
Turkish official propaganda blames the PKK for these killings, despite
the fact that more than 75 percent of those who have lost their lives
in this conflict were Kurdish civilians and guerillas. Thousands of
villages and hamlets in Turkish Kurdistan have been forcibly evacuated
and/or burned and millions of poor people of Kurdish origin have been
forced to flee to urban areas or abroad. Turkish authorities do not
deny the fact that the majority of those who lost their lives in this
dirty war are PKK guerillas and Kurdish civilians killed by "security"
forces. For instance, according to a Ministry of Internal Affairs
report published in the daily Milliyet on 16 January 1998, a total of
23,190 people were killed between 15 August 1984, when the Kurdish
guerilla activity began and 1 September 1997 as a result of armed
clashes. Of this total, the report says, 3,965 were civilians, 4,389
"security" personnel and 14,836 PKK guerillas. According to a similar
statement made by Aydin Arslan, the Governor of OHAL, between 19 July
1987 and 31 December 1997, the number of guerillas killed in action
amounted to 19,927, while 5,168 guerillas were captured alive. The
same source gave the number of soldiers killed in action as 4,459,
that of the police as 173 and that of the civilians as 4,287, for the
period under consideration. This brought the total number to 28,846.
In June 2000, Yavuz Onen, the Chairman of TIHV (=Human Rights
Foundation of Turkey) stated that during the last decade about one
million people were tortured, most of whom were of Kurdish origin.
Speaking at a press conference to mark the tenth anniversary of the
organization, Mr. Onen stressed the fact that torturers could not be
prosecuted owing to the obstruction of authorities; he also added
that torture aimed not only to terrorize the victims, but also at
the destruction of their personalities.
Here I have to remind the readers once again that, whatever its very
serious shortcomings from a consistent democratic and internationalist
viewpoint, the PKK has for quite a long time been for the peaceful
solution of the "Kurdish problem". The Turkish state, on the other
hand, has consistently stood for armed confrontation. Since 1993 the
PKK has several times offered to cease fire, declared unilateral
ceasefires times and again and called and worked for the peaceful
solution of this question. All these efforts to secure the peaceful
solution of the question, however, have been ignored, dismissed
and rejected by the Turkish authorities. They have always demanded
unconditional and total surrender of guerilla force and been bent on
the destruction of all institutions of Kurdish people, including their
legitimate parliamentary parties. (2) At present both the PKK and the
BDP (=Peace and Democracy Party) continue to appeal for such a peaceful
resolution of the question in return for some very modest reforms;
but Turkish authorities insist on maintaining their "traditional
way" of dealing with the Kurdish people, that is the use of brute,
systematic and indiscriminate terror coupled with calls of surrender,
despite all the demagogical talk on the so-called democratic opening
by the AK Party government.
Neither the so-called secular armed forces, nor the "moderate Islamist"
AK Party government are for the peaceful solution of the "Kurdish
question". If they had had such an intention, they would have shown
a minimum amount of respect towards peace initiatives and would have
met with the parliamentary representatives of Kurdish people. But
they have always chosen to criminalize such initiatives, outlaw such
parties and stifle the voice of Kurdish people. Recent history has
witnessed several examples of this reactionary attitude. Let's dwell
on two examples.
An interesting example of the brutal character of Turkish reactionaries
was demonstrated during the "Musa Anter Peace Train" campaign in August
1997. (3) The train was planned to depart from Brussels on 26 August
and arrive at Diyarbakir in Northern Kurdistan on 1 September, the
World Peace Day. The campaign was organized and supported by tens of
peace activists, parliamentarians, artists, human rights fighters from
Europe and all around the world, including Jose Ramos Horta, Bishop
Desmond Tutu, Gassan Solomon of the ANC (=African National Congress)
and Kurdish and Turkish democrats. But the Turkish authorities
blatantly declared their intention not to allow the train to enter
Turkish territory, vilifying the initiative as "terrorist"!
Thereupon, the peace delegation comprising several European,
Turkish and Kurdish members flew to Istanbul and proceeded by land
to Diyarbakir. The peace delegates occupying a seven bus convoy were
systematically harassed, prevented and even intimidated by "security"
forces all along the road. When they arrived at Siverek, a town near
Diyarbakir, they were stopped and compelled to return to Istanbul.
But, they had not yet seen all. On 4 September, peace delegates and
press correspondents accompanying them, came under the attack of
the police as they tried to make a press statement at Mim Hotel in
Ä°stanbul. As soon as the press statement was made, Mehmet Chaglar,
the Vice-Security Director of Istanbul directed the police to
take all peace delegates and press correspondents into custody. 24
people, including part of the peace delegates from Europe and press
correspondents were beaten, detained and taken to Mecidiyeköy Police
Station. They were threatened and beaten again in custody. Later,
some of them, including Ute Steinberg and Rosa Maria Stoffe had to be
treated at hospital. The remaining delegates were quarantined at the
hotel cafeteria and were only released after the arrival of British,
Italian, German and Spanish consulate officials. If they could act
towards foreign delegates in front of the Turkish and international
press, one could imagine their attitude towards people in military and
police custody, isolated peasant communities or political prisoners.
12 years after this incident DTP (= Democratic Society Party), which
had won a clear victory in the local elections on 29 March 2009,
was targeted by Turkish "security" forces once again. 53 senior DTP
activists and members, including vice co-presidents of the party,
were arrested in an operation launched in the early hours of the
morning of 14 April 2009.
After the DTP was closed by Turkish Constitutional Court on 11 December
2009, 94 mayors, members of provincial assemblies and members of
city councils joined the BDP (=Peace and Democracy Party) on 23
December 2009. In the morning hours of 24 December 2009 however,
"security forces" carried out another operation against the BDP.
Turkish authorities took more than 80 people including mayors and
former members of parliament, took them into custody, handcuffed them
as if they were dangerous criminals. This provocative act of Turkish
authorities was a repetition of the detention of 6 Kurdish MPs on 2
March 1994. Orhan Dogan, Hatip Dijle, Leyla Zana, Ahmet Turk, Sırrı
Sakik ve Mahmut Alinak were stripped of their deputy status by Turkish
State Security Court and taken unceremoniously under custody as they
left the Turkish parliament.
A Look at History
To shed more light on this question and expose the unjust,
unacceptable and indefensible nature of the attitude of Western
European states towards the Kurdish people, we briefly have to review
the historical record and let the public opinion decide on whom to call
"terrorist". The history of the formation of the Turkish state since
the beginning of the 20th century has been the history of ethnic
cleansing, white terror, unbridled violence and massacres against
non-Turkish peoples, including Kurds. In fact, Turkish state and
its Ottoman precedent have been and the real and foremost terrorist
organizations in the Balkans and the Middle East. The massacre or
genocide of 1-1.5 million Armenians in 1914-15 and later in 1918-23
by Ottoman-Turkish reactionaries is well known and widely documented.
But that was not all. Ottoman-Turkish reactionaries were also
responsible for the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Assyrians
in 1914-20, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Greeks and
deportation of millions of them to Greece in an unprecedented effort to
"ethnically cleanse" the country. The Assyro-Chaldean National Council
stated in a December 4, 1922, memorandum that the total death toll
was unknown, but it estimated that about 275,000 Assyro-Chaldeans
died between 1914 and 1918. In 1918, according to the Los Angeles
Times, Henry Morgenthau, US Ambassador to Turkey, estimated that
the Ottoman-Turkish authorities had massacred 2,000,000 men, women,
and children of Christian origin, of whom 1,500,000 were Armenians,
250,000 Greeks and another 250,000 Assyrians. According to Greek
sources, the Greek death toll, including those who lost their lives
in Western Anatolia, Pontos (Eastern Black Sea region) and Cappadocia
was much higher. (4)
Turkish reactionaries did maintain their tradition of attacking,
deporting and massacring non-Turkish people. In the 1920s and 1930s
Kurds became the main target of aggressive Turkish nationalism;
during these years of repression, rebellion and resistance tens of
thousands of people of Kurdish origin were massacred. The last link
of this chain of massacres took place in Dersim (present day Tunjeli)
in 1937-38, where according to various sources around 30,000 people
were killed by the Turkish army. (5) One of the most high profile
acts of terror organized by Turkish reactionaries took place in
6-7 September 1955 in Istanbul. Mobs, incited and organized by the
authorities attacked the houses, shops and places of worship of
Christian minorities, especially of Greeks on this date, without
any provocation whatsoever. According to official Turkish accounts,
during these two days of almost complete anarchy, three people were
killed and 30 wounded. 85 places of worship were partially or totally
destroyed and 5,538 shops and houses were damaged and looted, while
"security" forces did nothing to stop the mobs.
Several cemeteries of Christian minorities were desecrated in those
days and unknown number of girls and women were raped. The real
and probably much higher figures are not known, since the Turkish
governments have imposed a conspiracy of silence over the event.
(Greek sources give much higher numbers.) This pogrom had begun after
Prime Minister Adnan Menderes himself made a provocative speech on
the radio. He had "informed" the public about the bombing of the house
where Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Turkish republic, was born. As it
later emerged, the attack on that particular house in the Greek city of
Salonica was arranged by the MIT (=National Intelligence Organization)
and carried out by an agent called Oktay Engin to incite anti-Greek
feelings in Turkey. The authorities who themselves were behind the
plot immediately declared a state of emergency, blamed the attack
on "communists" and arrested dozens of progressive people. The
detainees were publicly accused by Prime Minister and the martial
law authorities, held in solitary confinement for months and later
released without any explanation or compensation.
What is more, agents of Turkish state have for decades been involved
in illegal activities and conducted several terrorist acts on European
soil itself. The high-profile assassination attempt on Pope John Paul
II on 13 May 1981, was only one of such acts. The pontiff was shot and
seriously wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca, a member of fascist-terrorist MHP
(=Nationalist Action Party). This murderer was deliberately set free
from a Turkish military prison while serving his term; his escape
to Europe on a false passport was arranged; he was housed, provided
and financially supported in Europe and lastly he had been prepared,
equipped and taken to the scene of the crime for this purpose. All
this was the work of the Turkish state and the agents of Turkish
intelligence, probably with encouragement and support from the CIA.
Turkish Prisons
The most hideous manifestation of Turkish state terrorism in
recent history revealed itself against Kurdish political inmates in
Diyarbakır Military Prison. Readers may find it shocking to hear
the fact that between 1981 and 1984, thirty-four Kurdish political
captives had died or been killed and hundreds were maimed and wounded
by elements of Turkish Gladio in this Gestapo camp, called "prison".
For months and years, a Kontrgerilla team headed by Captain Esat
Oktay Yildiran, under the direct command of Diyarbakir Martial Law
authorities, deprived Kurdish political captives even of the extremely
modest amenities usually available to all prisoners for decades in
Turkish prisons, such as the rights to buy food at the prison canteen,
to receive visitors etc. During the military dictatorship period
(1980-83) all political prisoners were deprived of almost all these
rights and felt the full impact of the brute repression, which lasted
long after Turkey's return to "civilian rule". Mr. Yildiran and his
team however, were not content with that. Kurdish political captives
in Diyarbakir became targets of continuous insult and abuse and were
subjected to daily and systematic beating and torture, were compelled
to say prayers, memorize and chant dozens of chauvinistic and military
songs, and salute even ordinary soldier-guards who systematically
abused and tortured them. They were put into cells filled with human
excrement, forced to drink their own urine, after being denied water
for days, forced to kiss the clubs they were beaten or were to be
beaten with. They were forced to beat each other and to eat their and
their comrades' excrements, forced to copulate with each other and
perform several similar utterly humiliating, disgusting and horrible
acts, befitting Turkish Nazis. Denial or restriction of food and even
of water could be considered an ordinary, and maybe an "innocent"
exercise under those circumstances. For the presumed advantages
of Turkish membership of EU and that of lucrative commercial and
financial relations, this black page of history has been convenienty
forgotten by almost all European states and parties.
The following account gives a rough idea about the conditions
prevailing of political prisoners in Turkish prisons during the 1980s
and 1990s. On January 25th, 1995, three political captives (Ercan
Hachin, Cengiz Kaya and Yusuf Temel) were transferred from Erzurum
Special-Type Prison and Erzurum E-Type Prison to Bartin Special-Type
Prison. They described the horrendous conditions in Erzurum prisons
in a letter they sent out. Here is a resume of their letter: "On
August 15th, 1994, soldiers, commandos, elements of Special Teams
and prison guards brandishing chains, iron clubs, cudgels attacked on
us and brutally beat and tortured all political captives. Many of us
lost consciousness as a result of the attack and all were thrown into
cells. Our belongings, including clothes, books, journals, radios,
pictures were destroyed and rendered unusable. Starting from this
date, all political captives were forced to confess and defect under
systematic torture. Those who resisted, were taken to prison bath and
forced to endure various sorts of torture, such traditional Turkish
falaka (beating of soles by clubs), application of electrical current
to different parts of the body, forced crawling on the cement ceiling
without any clothing on, dousing with cold water etc. Almost all
political captives were isolated from each other and put into cells.
Those who had to go to court or hospital were being tortured regularly
at the entrance to the prison. Inmates, who were bodily harmed as
a result of torture were not treated and left to die. There were an
unknown number of political captives who had attempted suicide. Selami
Zor had lost his life by hanging himself on August 30th, 1994. The
prison authorities tried to shift the blame for his death on his
comrades; they tortured Erdal Bektash, Nurullah Koch and Shervan Ahmet
to accept responsibility for Zor's death. Later, Arap Köseoglu had
also tried to hang himself, but was saved when the rope was broken,
injuring his neck permanently in the attempt. Ismet Orhan had set
himself on fire, but had not died. Afterwards he was dubbed deranged
and sent to a mental institution in Elazig, despite the fact that
his body was half burned and he was left untreated. Abdullah Kaya had
tried to strangle himself using his own prison uniform, but was saved
and heavily injured in the attempt. Those who go we hunger strike
to protest against these atrocities were forced to quit the action
under torture." (Atilim, 11-18 February 1995)
On September 24th, 1996, PKK fighters were massacred at Diyarbakir
E-Type Prison. This attack was carried out by Special Teams, gendarmes
and prison guards armed with iron bars, wooden clubs and firearms.
During this massacre, Edip Direkchi, Nimet Chakmak, Erkan Perishan, M.
Sabri Gumus, Ridvan Bulut, Hakki Tekin, Ahmet Chelik, Kadir Demir,
Mehmet Batuge and Cemal Cham were killed and a great many of
their comrades wounded. Almost all those killed and wounded had
received heavy blows almost exclusively on their heads; a fact which
definitely proved the homicidal intent of the "security" forces who
carried out the attack. Their hands and feet in chains, 25 wounded
political inmates were transferred to Gaziantep Special-Type Prison
immediately after the massacre without even being provided with the
most rudimentary medical care. What is more, they were beaten and
tortured during the journey, as a result of which one other inmate
(Kadir Demir) lost his life and two of them seriously wounded. To
hide their crime Turkish reactionaries charged the Parliamentary
Commission on Human Rights with the task to investigate the matter. The
16 page-long report of the Commission published later, confirmed the
murderous intent of the aggressors. The report told that the deaths
were "caused by 30 soldiers and 38 policemen who had exceeded the
limit of their authority in the quelling of the rebellion."
Ulujanlar massacre is another example of the infamous history Turkish
state terrorism. During the early hours of September 26th, 1999,
hundreds of Turkish soldiers, elements of Special Teams and the
police mounted an armed attack against political captives at Ankara
Central Closed Prison (otherwise known as Ulujanlar Prison), who
bravely defended themselves with the extremely limited means at their
disposal. 10 of them (Aziz Dincher, Ahmet Savran, Nevzat Chiftchi,
Abuzer Chat, Mahir Emsalsiz, Zafer Kirbiyik, Onder Genchaslan, Ismet
Kavaklioglu, Halil Turker and Umit Altintash) were killed during the
totally unequal struggle. The killers tried to justify themselves by
falsely arguing that inmates prevented them from conducting a general
search in the wards and fired upon the search party! Of course this
was one of countless big lies of Turkish reactionaries. In fact,
none of the fascist murderers were even seriously hurt, let alone
killed, while 10 political captives were killed through gunfire and
torture and more than 30 of them gravely injured. During the furst
phase of the operation some of the inmates were killed and several
of them wounded by the attackers who used guns, tear gas, chemical
foam and water cannon. Towards noon, soldiers armed with guns,
iron clubs and cudgels began to enter the wards. They immediately
started to torture the defenseless, wounded and almost suffocated
inmates. Later they took them to the prison bath and this time round
applied a more systematic torture. Most of the political captives
were brutally beaten and tortured for hours in the prison bath by the
Special Teams of the police and soldiers brandishing knives, acid,
firearms, iron clubs and burning cigarette butts. None of the inmates,
including those who had bullet wounds, were "neglected". Most were
killed due to blows they received on their skulls. Their bodies,
faces and heads were so disfigured that later, even some of the
parents could not recognize their beloved and dead sons. That was
the reason why the authorities did not permit the lawyers to attend
the postmortem examination of the remains of the martyrs. (6)
This massacre was followed by a more widespread attack on political
inmates. On 19 December 2000, around 10,000 soldiers stormed
20 prisons all over Turkey. In some of the prisons, part of the
political prisoners had been on hunger strike for more than two
months. 30 inmates and 2 soldiers lost their lives and dozens of
inmates were seriously wounded during the clashes where "security"
forces generously used high kinetic energy weapons, other firearms and
special chemicals. Later it was revealed that two soldiers were shot
dead by their comrades in the confusion. Criticizing the authorities,
Human Rights Association of Turkey, Turkish Medical Association, Human
Rights Foundation of Turkey, Association of Contemporary Jurists said:
"Reports and testimonies included in the dossiers of court cases
launched against convicts and prisoners on remand who are indeed the
victims, demonstrate that: 1. Excessive and disproportionate force have
been used by the security forces, 2. Arms and equipment which have
been developed to destroy human life have been used, 3. Prison wings
were set on fire and the security forces did not try to extinguish
the fire, 4. Security forces led prisoners to die under fire, 5. The
majority of prisoners died by gun-fire of security forces, blows or
being burnt down."
Occasional Self-Confessions
Turkish reactionaries themselves have from time to time talked about
their "feats" and made self-confessions. For instance, in 1987, a
report was prepared by Mehmet Eymur, the Chief of Counter-Trafficking
Division of MIT and made public by the weekly 2000'e Dogru on 7
February 1988. The report implicated several Turkish dignitaries,
including generals, MPs, businessmen, police chiefs and MIT
functionaries. This report officially confirmed cooperation of
these dignitaries with criminal elements and their involvement
in all sorts of extra-legal affairs, including drug trafficking,
extortion, financial fraud, terrorism, gun running, preparation
of forged documents, use of illegal wiretapping for personal gain
etc. and once more exposed the criminal character of the Turkish
ruling classes. The names mentioned in the report included retired
general Tahsin Shahinkaya, one of the four generals, who led the 12
September 1980 military coup d'etat, retired general Necdet Urug,
former head of the Istanbul Martial Law Command and former Chief of
Staff of the Turkish armed forces, Hadi Urug, his son, Shukru Balci,
former police chief of Istanbul, Unal Erkan, former Governor of OHAL
(=Turkish Kurdistan), Mehmet Agar, former Chief of General Security
Directorate and former Minister of "Justice" and Minister of Internal
Affairs, Nevzat Ayaz, former Governor of Istanbul, Nuri Gundes,
former MIT chief of Istanbul and others.
In 1991, General Sabri Yirmibesoglu, one of the architects and
veterans of the Turkish gladio admitted to the bombing of Ataturk's
house. In an interview he gave to the author of a book on the pogrom
of 6-7 September 1955, "Of course. 6-7 September events too were the
work of the Special War Department" he said. "And that was a splendid
organization. It hit the target..." (Fatih Gullapoglu, Tanksiz Topsuz
Harekat, 1991, p. 103)
Algan Hacaloglu, in his capacity as the spokesman for the Turkish
Parliament's Commission of Inquiry on Internal Migration made a
statement in August 1997 on the plight of internally displaced Kurdish
peasants, who were forcibly evacuated from their villages. He told
that, a fund to the tune of 5 billion US dollars would be needed for
the resettlement of these impoverished and traumatized people. In his
statement, he conceded the fact that, 900 villages and 3,200 smaller
residential units were evacuated and part of them were burned for
reasons of 'security'. He also told: "These people are hungry and
destitute. They are living in tents and shelters and under extremely
unhealthy conditions. Families, amounting to 10-15 people have to be
content with just one room, without a kitchen, toilet or bathroom."
(Hurriyet, 8 August 1997)
23 October 1999 issue of daily Milliyet carried a revealing statement
by Sadik Avundukluoglu, himself a reactionary MP and the head of the
Parliamentary Commission for the Investigation of Unsolved Political
Murders. This Commission, first of its kind in the history of the
Turkish Republic, was established in 1993, following the murder
of prominent journalist Ugur Mumcu, on January 24th, 1993. In his
statement Mr. Avundukluoglu told that, none of the 908 unsolved
political murders committed between 1975 and 1993, which had come
to the attention of the Commission had been solved. According to
the report, 412 people had "disappeared" in police custody between
12 September 1980 and June 1985. The report also admitted the fact
that JITEM (=Intelligence and Counter-Terror Bureau of Gendarmerie
involved in extra-judicial murdes of Kurdish people in particular)
and other repressive bodies of the state were involved in arms and
drug trafficking, in extra-judicial murders and extortion directly or
through criminal gangs composed of "Village Guards" and PKK defectors
under their control. The report underlined the suspicion hanging over
the death of General Eshref Bitlis, Commander-General of Gendarmerie,
on 17 February 1993, together with four soldiers and a civilian when
his military plane crashed just after taking off from a military
airfield in Ankara. It also confirmed the widely-known ties between
Turkish Hizbullah murderers and the armed forces, who trained, armed
and directed the former in their dirty war against PKK and Kurdish
people. At the end of a two year-long work, the above-mentioned
Commission, had finished its job and was ready to present its 200
page-long report to the Turkish Parliament. The report was prepared
with the support of various experts and together with several
appendices amounted to more than 10,000 pages. However, this report
and its appendices were never discussed at the Parliament; they were
not even brought to the agenda of this body. Some government ministers
went so far as demanding the deletion of passages accusing "security"
forces in the report. Judge Akman Akyurek, a specialist attached to
the Commission retorted them and told: "All of the allegations in
our report are documented and probably the report covers a small
portion of the incidents." According to the 9 December 1997 issue
of daily Hurriyet, Judge Akman Akyurek was killed in Ä°stanbul in a
"car accident", the day before.
And in November 2009, in the midst of a polemic with the opposition
CHP (=Republican People's Party) Turkish Prime Minister Rejep T.
Erdogan implicitly accepted the fact that there had been a massacre
in Dersim during the fateful years of 1937-38.
* * * * * As I end this entirely inadequate portrait of Turkish state
terrorism, I have to remind the readers that Turkey still lives under
the shadow of a fascist coup d'etat made by generals on 12 September
1980 with the support of the United States. In 1982, a constitution
was drafted by the lackeys of Turkish generals and adopted in 1983
under conditions of military rule. Those generals have never been
called to account and their present-day successors wield extensive
privileges, despite certain steps the AK Party government has taken
to curb their power. Besides, almost thirty years after the fascist
coup d'etat, the 1982 constitution of the generals still remains in
force in a country that has acquired candidate membership in the EU
at the Helsinki Summit held in December 1999. The last attacks of
European police on Kurdish leaders and journalists show that much
remains the same; Western European states continue to give priority
to their economic, political and military interests and continue
courting Turkish reactionaries whose hands are stained with the blood
of hundreds of thousands or rather millions of children, women and men.
NOTES (1) Involvement of Turkish authorities and the armed forces in
drug trafficking was confirmed in the report of OGD (=Observatoire
geopolitique des drogues/ Geopolitical Drug Watch), a Paris-based
anti-narcotic body, published on 25 September 1997. OGD report
described Turkey's evolution from a transporting country for the drug
incoming from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1970s and 1980s to
a drug producing, processing and exporting country in the 1990s. The
report said that the amount of heroin seized in Turkey amounted to
about 22 percent of the world total; on the other hand, the amount
of seized, but not officially reported and stashed away heroin was
estimated to be 800-1,200 kilograms. In its report, OGD told that the
"dirty war" Turkish army was conducting against Kurdish people was
costing 10 billion US dollars yearly and drug trafficking was the main
source of finance the army was tapping for this purpose. The armed
forces were directly involved in drug trafficking, the report said,
and military personnel themselves carried large amounts of drug in
helicopters, armored personnel carriers and even on battleships!
A news item published in daily Milliyet on 28 February 1999, referred
to a U. S. State Department report entitled "International Narcotics
Control Strategy 1998" In this report Turkey was still dubbed as an
important bridge in the transport of drug to the European market. The
report told: "The amount of heroin and other illegal drugs is not
known; but according to the estimates of DEA (=Drug Enforcement
Administration), around for to six tons of heroin is consigned to
Europe every month. And about 75 percent of heroin seized in Europe has
a Turkish connection; it has been transported through Turkey or it has
been processed in Turkey or its connection with Turkish criminal gangs
has been established at the time of their seizure." The report also
mentioned the fact that, as of 30 September 1998, the amount of dirty
money deposited in Turkish banks was about 4.3 billion US dollars.
(2) Between 1993 and 2009, that is in the space of 16 years 7
parliamentary parties of Kurdish people have been banned by Turkish
authorities. These are HEP (=People's Labor Party) banned on 14 July
1993, OZDEP (=Freedom and Democracy Party) banned on 23 November 1993,
DEP (=Democracy Party) banned on 16 June 1994, DDP (=Democratic Change
Party) banned in 19 March 1996, DKP (=Democratic Mass Party) banned on
26 February 1999, HADEP (=People's Democracy Party) banned on 13 March
2003 and DTP (=Democratic Society Party) banned on 11 December 2009.
(3) Musa Anter (1920-1992) was a veteran and much respected Kurdish
journalist and poet. He was shot dead in 1992 by the agents of
Turkish Gladio in Diyarbakir, while attending festival, organised by
the local council. Orhan Miroglu, a friend who was accompanying him,
was seriously wounded in the attack. Turkey was found guilty of this
murder in 2006 by the European Court of Human Rights and was sentenced
to pay a fine of 28,500 euros. (4) Part of the Kurdish population
led by their feudal lords have taken part in the massacres conducted
against Armenian and Assyrian peoples, This, however, does not in
any way lessen the responsibility of Ottoman-Turkish reactionaries
who were the real architects of these vicious crimes.
(5) Dr. Nuri Dersimi, who wrote a book (Kurdistan Tarihinde Dersim=
Dersim in Kurdish History) later in Syria, tells the way Turkish troops
killed women and children, whose husbands and fathers had already
been massacred. Dersimi explains how troops bricked up the entrances
of the caves where women and children had taken refuge, how they lit
fires that led to the death of those inside through suffocation and
how those who tried to escape were bayoneted by the troops.
(6) After the massacre, a parliamentary subcommittee was founded to
investigate the matter. On May 2nd, 2000, the report prepared by this
subcommittee attached to the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission
was made public. Commenting on the findings of the subcommittee,
Sema Pishkinsut, an MP of Bulent Ejevit's DSP (=Democratic Left
Party) and the head of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission,
told the following: "The backs of three or four prisoners have
been riddled with gunshots. Further, we came across widespread
postmortem data, including internal dermal hemorrhage and burns, which
were not mentioned in forensic reports..." (Milliyet, 3 May 2000)
Ms. PiÅ~_kinsut also told about the burns encountered on the faces of
several political captives murdered at Ulujanlar Prison and stated:
"These marks resembled very much those that arise as a result of
acid burns... There is the likelihood that these marks have come
about owing to the use of various chemical materials, such as foam
and tear gas simultaneously and in an airless environment." (Ibid)
By : Garbis Altinoglu March Tuesday 16 2010
http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19623
Garbis Altinoglu
Collective Bellaciao
March 16 2010
Facts and Fallacies At 5 A.M. on March 4, Belgian police raided
the offices of ROJ TV, the voice of Kurdish people, BDP's European
office and several other addresses in Belgium. 30 people were taken
into custody, including Remzi Kartal and Zubeyir Aydar and several
journalists. Belgian media sources said around 300 officers took part
in raids in Brussels, Antwerp and other Belgian cities. The Belgian
police put hoods on the heads of Mr. Kartal, Mr. Aydar and their
comrades, dragged them and treated them as if they were dangerous
criminals. Computers and other equipment belonging to the ROJ TV were
damaged during the operation. Belgian authorities shut down ROJ TV to
the consternation of the Kurdish people. This so-called anti-terrorist
operation follows similar operations in Italy and France and seems
to be coordinated throughout Western Europe and actively encouraged
and supported by the United States and Turkey. Remzi Kartal and
Zubeyir Aydar, who were former members of the DEP (=Democracy Party)
and members of Turkish parliament had been compelled to leave their
country due to political repression and for the peaceful solution
of the "Kurdish problem". They had been conducting political and
diplomatic activities with regard to the national and democratic
rights of Kurdish people, who have suffered for decades under the
military yoke of Turkish reactionaries. The arrests Kartal and Aydar
and others are falsely presented as "an operation against terrorism".
In reality, however, it is an operation aimed at appeasing the
United States and Turkey, an operation against Kurdish people and its
democratic and national aspirations. Belgian and European authorities
have indicted the persons involved with training Kurdish youths with
"training them in camps" and providing the PKK with taking part in a
terrorist enterprise, financing terrorist activities and violating gun
laws, as well as drug-trafficking, people smuggling and extortion. In
so doing they are repeating the well-worn demagogic statements of
Turkish authorities, who themselves have been involved for years in
this sort of dirty work as documented times and again by international
agencies. (1) It is obvious that Belgian authorities could not
have decided upon such a drastic action by themselves alone. It is
highly probable that a Europe-wide consensus has been established
to crack down on Kurds. But, what is the political meaning of such
a move? Does it serve to the cause of the peaceful solution of the
"Kurdish problem"? Or does it serve the aggressive policies of Turkish
reactionaries, who insist on maintaining their despotic yoke over the
Kurdish people through white terror? Obviously it serves the latter.
Notwithstanding its very serious shortcomings, PKK is an organization
fighting against a despotic and reactionary state to ensure the basic
rights of oppressed Kurdish people and this is what counts. Besides,
it has strong and widespread support among the Kurdish population of
Turkey and the large Kurdish diaspora in Europe. Let's not forget
that, at the root of this conflict lies the barbaric repression of
Kurdish people by the Turkish state, which has blocked all its means
of peaceful resistance, until very recently denied its very existence
and banned the use of its mother tongue. One might not condone PKK's
political line and criticize its policies and some of its actions
and might even oppose its strategy and political line. This, however,
detracts nothing from the just and legitimate character of the struggle
of Kurdish people for their democratic and national rights.
Therefore leaving aside the legal technicalities and the not so
important details of this subject, one has to ask a simple question
and answer it in an honest and straightforward manner: Who are the
real terrorists? The PKK, Kurdish people OR the Turkish reactionaries
and militarists?
The original source of such accusations against the PKK is the Turkish
state itself. One cannot but be shocked by the extremely hypocritical
efforts of Turkish reactionaries to blame their own terrorist mentality
and practice on various peoples they have oppressed and massacred
and continue to oppress and massacre. The demagogy of Turkish
reactionaries, who have systematically practiced state terrorism,
matches only their barbarism. They are not content with the Kurdish
massacres they have conducted in the 1920s and 1930s; with denying
the existence of Kurdish nation, banning the use of Kurdish language
and suppressing Kurdish culture for decades; with their systematic
destruction of Kurdish intellectuals and other community leaders;
with evacuating millions of Kurdish peasants from their villages,
burning their houses and forests, killing their cattle and sheep;
with torturing and murdering of thousands of unarmed Kurdish people
and dumping of their remains into unidentified mass graves; with
posing with the heads of dead guerillas they have decapitated,
with desecrating the stripped bodies of dead women guerillas and
with heavily bombarding Kurdish towns. Despite all this, they still
complain of Kurdish terrorism!
It is the Kurdish people and Kurdish guerillas who have borne the brunt
of the fighting. According to the data provided by Turkish authorities,
more than 50,000 people have been killed as a result of armed clashes
between PKK guerillas and security forces and their Kurdish allies,
that is, the so-called Village Guards since 1984.
Turkish official propaganda blames the PKK for these killings, despite
the fact that more than 75 percent of those who have lost their lives
in this conflict were Kurdish civilians and guerillas. Thousands of
villages and hamlets in Turkish Kurdistan have been forcibly evacuated
and/or burned and millions of poor people of Kurdish origin have been
forced to flee to urban areas or abroad. Turkish authorities do not
deny the fact that the majority of those who lost their lives in this
dirty war are PKK guerillas and Kurdish civilians killed by "security"
forces. For instance, according to a Ministry of Internal Affairs
report published in the daily Milliyet on 16 January 1998, a total of
23,190 people were killed between 15 August 1984, when the Kurdish
guerilla activity began and 1 September 1997 as a result of armed
clashes. Of this total, the report says, 3,965 were civilians, 4,389
"security" personnel and 14,836 PKK guerillas. According to a similar
statement made by Aydin Arslan, the Governor of OHAL, between 19 July
1987 and 31 December 1997, the number of guerillas killed in action
amounted to 19,927, while 5,168 guerillas were captured alive. The
same source gave the number of soldiers killed in action as 4,459,
that of the police as 173 and that of the civilians as 4,287, for the
period under consideration. This brought the total number to 28,846.
In June 2000, Yavuz Onen, the Chairman of TIHV (=Human Rights
Foundation of Turkey) stated that during the last decade about one
million people were tortured, most of whom were of Kurdish origin.
Speaking at a press conference to mark the tenth anniversary of the
organization, Mr. Onen stressed the fact that torturers could not be
prosecuted owing to the obstruction of authorities; he also added
that torture aimed not only to terrorize the victims, but also at
the destruction of their personalities.
Here I have to remind the readers once again that, whatever its very
serious shortcomings from a consistent democratic and internationalist
viewpoint, the PKK has for quite a long time been for the peaceful
solution of the "Kurdish problem". The Turkish state, on the other
hand, has consistently stood for armed confrontation. Since 1993 the
PKK has several times offered to cease fire, declared unilateral
ceasefires times and again and called and worked for the peaceful
solution of this question. All these efforts to secure the peaceful
solution of the question, however, have been ignored, dismissed
and rejected by the Turkish authorities. They have always demanded
unconditional and total surrender of guerilla force and been bent on
the destruction of all institutions of Kurdish people, including their
legitimate parliamentary parties. (2) At present both the PKK and the
BDP (=Peace and Democracy Party) continue to appeal for such a peaceful
resolution of the question in return for some very modest reforms;
but Turkish authorities insist on maintaining their "traditional
way" of dealing with the Kurdish people, that is the use of brute,
systematic and indiscriminate terror coupled with calls of surrender,
despite all the demagogical talk on the so-called democratic opening
by the AK Party government.
Neither the so-called secular armed forces, nor the "moderate Islamist"
AK Party government are for the peaceful solution of the "Kurdish
question". If they had had such an intention, they would have shown
a minimum amount of respect towards peace initiatives and would have
met with the parliamentary representatives of Kurdish people. But
they have always chosen to criminalize such initiatives, outlaw such
parties and stifle the voice of Kurdish people. Recent history has
witnessed several examples of this reactionary attitude. Let's dwell
on two examples.
An interesting example of the brutal character of Turkish reactionaries
was demonstrated during the "Musa Anter Peace Train" campaign in August
1997. (3) The train was planned to depart from Brussels on 26 August
and arrive at Diyarbakir in Northern Kurdistan on 1 September, the
World Peace Day. The campaign was organized and supported by tens of
peace activists, parliamentarians, artists, human rights fighters from
Europe and all around the world, including Jose Ramos Horta, Bishop
Desmond Tutu, Gassan Solomon of the ANC (=African National Congress)
and Kurdish and Turkish democrats. But the Turkish authorities
blatantly declared their intention not to allow the train to enter
Turkish territory, vilifying the initiative as "terrorist"!
Thereupon, the peace delegation comprising several European,
Turkish and Kurdish members flew to Istanbul and proceeded by land
to Diyarbakir. The peace delegates occupying a seven bus convoy were
systematically harassed, prevented and even intimidated by "security"
forces all along the road. When they arrived at Siverek, a town near
Diyarbakir, they were stopped and compelled to return to Istanbul.
But, they had not yet seen all. On 4 September, peace delegates and
press correspondents accompanying them, came under the attack of
the police as they tried to make a press statement at Mim Hotel in
Ä°stanbul. As soon as the press statement was made, Mehmet Chaglar,
the Vice-Security Director of Istanbul directed the police to
take all peace delegates and press correspondents into custody. 24
people, including part of the peace delegates from Europe and press
correspondents were beaten, detained and taken to Mecidiyeköy Police
Station. They were threatened and beaten again in custody. Later,
some of them, including Ute Steinberg and Rosa Maria Stoffe had to be
treated at hospital. The remaining delegates were quarantined at the
hotel cafeteria and were only released after the arrival of British,
Italian, German and Spanish consulate officials. If they could act
towards foreign delegates in front of the Turkish and international
press, one could imagine their attitude towards people in military and
police custody, isolated peasant communities or political prisoners.
12 years after this incident DTP (= Democratic Society Party), which
had won a clear victory in the local elections on 29 March 2009,
was targeted by Turkish "security" forces once again. 53 senior DTP
activists and members, including vice co-presidents of the party,
were arrested in an operation launched in the early hours of the
morning of 14 April 2009.
After the DTP was closed by Turkish Constitutional Court on 11 December
2009, 94 mayors, members of provincial assemblies and members of
city councils joined the BDP (=Peace and Democracy Party) on 23
December 2009. In the morning hours of 24 December 2009 however,
"security forces" carried out another operation against the BDP.
Turkish authorities took more than 80 people including mayors and
former members of parliament, took them into custody, handcuffed them
as if they were dangerous criminals. This provocative act of Turkish
authorities was a repetition of the detention of 6 Kurdish MPs on 2
March 1994. Orhan Dogan, Hatip Dijle, Leyla Zana, Ahmet Turk, Sırrı
Sakik ve Mahmut Alinak were stripped of their deputy status by Turkish
State Security Court and taken unceremoniously under custody as they
left the Turkish parliament.
A Look at History
To shed more light on this question and expose the unjust,
unacceptable and indefensible nature of the attitude of Western
European states towards the Kurdish people, we briefly have to review
the historical record and let the public opinion decide on whom to call
"terrorist". The history of the formation of the Turkish state since
the beginning of the 20th century has been the history of ethnic
cleansing, white terror, unbridled violence and massacres against
non-Turkish peoples, including Kurds. In fact, Turkish state and
its Ottoman precedent have been and the real and foremost terrorist
organizations in the Balkans and the Middle East. The massacre or
genocide of 1-1.5 million Armenians in 1914-15 and later in 1918-23
by Ottoman-Turkish reactionaries is well known and widely documented.
But that was not all. Ottoman-Turkish reactionaries were also
responsible for the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Assyrians
in 1914-20, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Greeks and
deportation of millions of them to Greece in an unprecedented effort to
"ethnically cleanse" the country. The Assyro-Chaldean National Council
stated in a December 4, 1922, memorandum that the total death toll
was unknown, but it estimated that about 275,000 Assyro-Chaldeans
died between 1914 and 1918. In 1918, according to the Los Angeles
Times, Henry Morgenthau, US Ambassador to Turkey, estimated that
the Ottoman-Turkish authorities had massacred 2,000,000 men, women,
and children of Christian origin, of whom 1,500,000 were Armenians,
250,000 Greeks and another 250,000 Assyrians. According to Greek
sources, the Greek death toll, including those who lost their lives
in Western Anatolia, Pontos (Eastern Black Sea region) and Cappadocia
was much higher. (4)
Turkish reactionaries did maintain their tradition of attacking,
deporting and massacring non-Turkish people. In the 1920s and 1930s
Kurds became the main target of aggressive Turkish nationalism;
during these years of repression, rebellion and resistance tens of
thousands of people of Kurdish origin were massacred. The last link
of this chain of massacres took place in Dersim (present day Tunjeli)
in 1937-38, where according to various sources around 30,000 people
were killed by the Turkish army. (5) One of the most high profile
acts of terror organized by Turkish reactionaries took place in
6-7 September 1955 in Istanbul. Mobs, incited and organized by the
authorities attacked the houses, shops and places of worship of
Christian minorities, especially of Greeks on this date, without
any provocation whatsoever. According to official Turkish accounts,
during these two days of almost complete anarchy, three people were
killed and 30 wounded. 85 places of worship were partially or totally
destroyed and 5,538 shops and houses were damaged and looted, while
"security" forces did nothing to stop the mobs.
Several cemeteries of Christian minorities were desecrated in those
days and unknown number of girls and women were raped. The real
and probably much higher figures are not known, since the Turkish
governments have imposed a conspiracy of silence over the event.
(Greek sources give much higher numbers.) This pogrom had begun after
Prime Minister Adnan Menderes himself made a provocative speech on
the radio. He had "informed" the public about the bombing of the house
where Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Turkish republic, was born. As it
later emerged, the attack on that particular house in the Greek city of
Salonica was arranged by the MIT (=National Intelligence Organization)
and carried out by an agent called Oktay Engin to incite anti-Greek
feelings in Turkey. The authorities who themselves were behind the
plot immediately declared a state of emergency, blamed the attack
on "communists" and arrested dozens of progressive people. The
detainees were publicly accused by Prime Minister and the martial
law authorities, held in solitary confinement for months and later
released without any explanation or compensation.
What is more, agents of Turkish state have for decades been involved
in illegal activities and conducted several terrorist acts on European
soil itself. The high-profile assassination attempt on Pope John Paul
II on 13 May 1981, was only one of such acts. The pontiff was shot and
seriously wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca, a member of fascist-terrorist MHP
(=Nationalist Action Party). This murderer was deliberately set free
from a Turkish military prison while serving his term; his escape
to Europe on a false passport was arranged; he was housed, provided
and financially supported in Europe and lastly he had been prepared,
equipped and taken to the scene of the crime for this purpose. All
this was the work of the Turkish state and the agents of Turkish
intelligence, probably with encouragement and support from the CIA.
Turkish Prisons
The most hideous manifestation of Turkish state terrorism in
recent history revealed itself against Kurdish political inmates in
Diyarbakır Military Prison. Readers may find it shocking to hear
the fact that between 1981 and 1984, thirty-four Kurdish political
captives had died or been killed and hundreds were maimed and wounded
by elements of Turkish Gladio in this Gestapo camp, called "prison".
For months and years, a Kontrgerilla team headed by Captain Esat
Oktay Yildiran, under the direct command of Diyarbakir Martial Law
authorities, deprived Kurdish political captives even of the extremely
modest amenities usually available to all prisoners for decades in
Turkish prisons, such as the rights to buy food at the prison canteen,
to receive visitors etc. During the military dictatorship period
(1980-83) all political prisoners were deprived of almost all these
rights and felt the full impact of the brute repression, which lasted
long after Turkey's return to "civilian rule". Mr. Yildiran and his
team however, were not content with that. Kurdish political captives
in Diyarbakir became targets of continuous insult and abuse and were
subjected to daily and systematic beating and torture, were compelled
to say prayers, memorize and chant dozens of chauvinistic and military
songs, and salute even ordinary soldier-guards who systematically
abused and tortured them. They were put into cells filled with human
excrement, forced to drink their own urine, after being denied water
for days, forced to kiss the clubs they were beaten or were to be
beaten with. They were forced to beat each other and to eat their and
their comrades' excrements, forced to copulate with each other and
perform several similar utterly humiliating, disgusting and horrible
acts, befitting Turkish Nazis. Denial or restriction of food and even
of water could be considered an ordinary, and maybe an "innocent"
exercise under those circumstances. For the presumed advantages
of Turkish membership of EU and that of lucrative commercial and
financial relations, this black page of history has been convenienty
forgotten by almost all European states and parties.
The following account gives a rough idea about the conditions
prevailing of political prisoners in Turkish prisons during the 1980s
and 1990s. On January 25th, 1995, three political captives (Ercan
Hachin, Cengiz Kaya and Yusuf Temel) were transferred from Erzurum
Special-Type Prison and Erzurum E-Type Prison to Bartin Special-Type
Prison. They described the horrendous conditions in Erzurum prisons
in a letter they sent out. Here is a resume of their letter: "On
August 15th, 1994, soldiers, commandos, elements of Special Teams
and prison guards brandishing chains, iron clubs, cudgels attacked on
us and brutally beat and tortured all political captives. Many of us
lost consciousness as a result of the attack and all were thrown into
cells. Our belongings, including clothes, books, journals, radios,
pictures were destroyed and rendered unusable. Starting from this
date, all political captives were forced to confess and defect under
systematic torture. Those who resisted, were taken to prison bath and
forced to endure various sorts of torture, such traditional Turkish
falaka (beating of soles by clubs), application of electrical current
to different parts of the body, forced crawling on the cement ceiling
without any clothing on, dousing with cold water etc. Almost all
political captives were isolated from each other and put into cells.
Those who had to go to court or hospital were being tortured regularly
at the entrance to the prison. Inmates, who were bodily harmed as
a result of torture were not treated and left to die. There were an
unknown number of political captives who had attempted suicide. Selami
Zor had lost his life by hanging himself on August 30th, 1994. The
prison authorities tried to shift the blame for his death on his
comrades; they tortured Erdal Bektash, Nurullah Koch and Shervan Ahmet
to accept responsibility for Zor's death. Later, Arap Köseoglu had
also tried to hang himself, but was saved when the rope was broken,
injuring his neck permanently in the attempt. Ismet Orhan had set
himself on fire, but had not died. Afterwards he was dubbed deranged
and sent to a mental institution in Elazig, despite the fact that
his body was half burned and he was left untreated. Abdullah Kaya had
tried to strangle himself using his own prison uniform, but was saved
and heavily injured in the attempt. Those who go we hunger strike
to protest against these atrocities were forced to quit the action
under torture." (Atilim, 11-18 February 1995)
On September 24th, 1996, PKK fighters were massacred at Diyarbakir
E-Type Prison. This attack was carried out by Special Teams, gendarmes
and prison guards armed with iron bars, wooden clubs and firearms.
During this massacre, Edip Direkchi, Nimet Chakmak, Erkan Perishan, M.
Sabri Gumus, Ridvan Bulut, Hakki Tekin, Ahmet Chelik, Kadir Demir,
Mehmet Batuge and Cemal Cham were killed and a great many of
their comrades wounded. Almost all those killed and wounded had
received heavy blows almost exclusively on their heads; a fact which
definitely proved the homicidal intent of the "security" forces who
carried out the attack. Their hands and feet in chains, 25 wounded
political inmates were transferred to Gaziantep Special-Type Prison
immediately after the massacre without even being provided with the
most rudimentary medical care. What is more, they were beaten and
tortured during the journey, as a result of which one other inmate
(Kadir Demir) lost his life and two of them seriously wounded. To
hide their crime Turkish reactionaries charged the Parliamentary
Commission on Human Rights with the task to investigate the matter. The
16 page-long report of the Commission published later, confirmed the
murderous intent of the aggressors. The report told that the deaths
were "caused by 30 soldiers and 38 policemen who had exceeded the
limit of their authority in the quelling of the rebellion."
Ulujanlar massacre is another example of the infamous history Turkish
state terrorism. During the early hours of September 26th, 1999,
hundreds of Turkish soldiers, elements of Special Teams and the
police mounted an armed attack against political captives at Ankara
Central Closed Prison (otherwise known as Ulujanlar Prison), who
bravely defended themselves with the extremely limited means at their
disposal. 10 of them (Aziz Dincher, Ahmet Savran, Nevzat Chiftchi,
Abuzer Chat, Mahir Emsalsiz, Zafer Kirbiyik, Onder Genchaslan, Ismet
Kavaklioglu, Halil Turker and Umit Altintash) were killed during the
totally unequal struggle. The killers tried to justify themselves by
falsely arguing that inmates prevented them from conducting a general
search in the wards and fired upon the search party! Of course this
was one of countless big lies of Turkish reactionaries. In fact,
none of the fascist murderers were even seriously hurt, let alone
killed, while 10 political captives were killed through gunfire and
torture and more than 30 of them gravely injured. During the furst
phase of the operation some of the inmates were killed and several
of them wounded by the attackers who used guns, tear gas, chemical
foam and water cannon. Towards noon, soldiers armed with guns,
iron clubs and cudgels began to enter the wards. They immediately
started to torture the defenseless, wounded and almost suffocated
inmates. Later they took them to the prison bath and this time round
applied a more systematic torture. Most of the political captives
were brutally beaten and tortured for hours in the prison bath by the
Special Teams of the police and soldiers brandishing knives, acid,
firearms, iron clubs and burning cigarette butts. None of the inmates,
including those who had bullet wounds, were "neglected". Most were
killed due to blows they received on their skulls. Their bodies,
faces and heads were so disfigured that later, even some of the
parents could not recognize their beloved and dead sons. That was
the reason why the authorities did not permit the lawyers to attend
the postmortem examination of the remains of the martyrs. (6)
This massacre was followed by a more widespread attack on political
inmates. On 19 December 2000, around 10,000 soldiers stormed
20 prisons all over Turkey. In some of the prisons, part of the
political prisoners had been on hunger strike for more than two
months. 30 inmates and 2 soldiers lost their lives and dozens of
inmates were seriously wounded during the clashes where "security"
forces generously used high kinetic energy weapons, other firearms and
special chemicals. Later it was revealed that two soldiers were shot
dead by their comrades in the confusion. Criticizing the authorities,
Human Rights Association of Turkey, Turkish Medical Association, Human
Rights Foundation of Turkey, Association of Contemporary Jurists said:
"Reports and testimonies included in the dossiers of court cases
launched against convicts and prisoners on remand who are indeed the
victims, demonstrate that: 1. Excessive and disproportionate force have
been used by the security forces, 2. Arms and equipment which have
been developed to destroy human life have been used, 3. Prison wings
were set on fire and the security forces did not try to extinguish
the fire, 4. Security forces led prisoners to die under fire, 5. The
majority of prisoners died by gun-fire of security forces, blows or
being burnt down."
Occasional Self-Confessions
Turkish reactionaries themselves have from time to time talked about
their "feats" and made self-confessions. For instance, in 1987, a
report was prepared by Mehmet Eymur, the Chief of Counter-Trafficking
Division of MIT and made public by the weekly 2000'e Dogru on 7
February 1988. The report implicated several Turkish dignitaries,
including generals, MPs, businessmen, police chiefs and MIT
functionaries. This report officially confirmed cooperation of
these dignitaries with criminal elements and their involvement
in all sorts of extra-legal affairs, including drug trafficking,
extortion, financial fraud, terrorism, gun running, preparation
of forged documents, use of illegal wiretapping for personal gain
etc. and once more exposed the criminal character of the Turkish
ruling classes. The names mentioned in the report included retired
general Tahsin Shahinkaya, one of the four generals, who led the 12
September 1980 military coup d'etat, retired general Necdet Urug,
former head of the Istanbul Martial Law Command and former Chief of
Staff of the Turkish armed forces, Hadi Urug, his son, Shukru Balci,
former police chief of Istanbul, Unal Erkan, former Governor of OHAL
(=Turkish Kurdistan), Mehmet Agar, former Chief of General Security
Directorate and former Minister of "Justice" and Minister of Internal
Affairs, Nevzat Ayaz, former Governor of Istanbul, Nuri Gundes,
former MIT chief of Istanbul and others.
In 1991, General Sabri Yirmibesoglu, one of the architects and
veterans of the Turkish gladio admitted to the bombing of Ataturk's
house. In an interview he gave to the author of a book on the pogrom
of 6-7 September 1955, "Of course. 6-7 September events too were the
work of the Special War Department" he said. "And that was a splendid
organization. It hit the target..." (Fatih Gullapoglu, Tanksiz Topsuz
Harekat, 1991, p. 103)
Algan Hacaloglu, in his capacity as the spokesman for the Turkish
Parliament's Commission of Inquiry on Internal Migration made a
statement in August 1997 on the plight of internally displaced Kurdish
peasants, who were forcibly evacuated from their villages. He told
that, a fund to the tune of 5 billion US dollars would be needed for
the resettlement of these impoverished and traumatized people. In his
statement, he conceded the fact that, 900 villages and 3,200 smaller
residential units were evacuated and part of them were burned for
reasons of 'security'. He also told: "These people are hungry and
destitute. They are living in tents and shelters and under extremely
unhealthy conditions. Families, amounting to 10-15 people have to be
content with just one room, without a kitchen, toilet or bathroom."
(Hurriyet, 8 August 1997)
23 October 1999 issue of daily Milliyet carried a revealing statement
by Sadik Avundukluoglu, himself a reactionary MP and the head of the
Parliamentary Commission for the Investigation of Unsolved Political
Murders. This Commission, first of its kind in the history of the
Turkish Republic, was established in 1993, following the murder
of prominent journalist Ugur Mumcu, on January 24th, 1993. In his
statement Mr. Avundukluoglu told that, none of the 908 unsolved
political murders committed between 1975 and 1993, which had come
to the attention of the Commission had been solved. According to
the report, 412 people had "disappeared" in police custody between
12 September 1980 and June 1985. The report also admitted the fact
that JITEM (=Intelligence and Counter-Terror Bureau of Gendarmerie
involved in extra-judicial murdes of Kurdish people in particular)
and other repressive bodies of the state were involved in arms and
drug trafficking, in extra-judicial murders and extortion directly or
through criminal gangs composed of "Village Guards" and PKK defectors
under their control. The report underlined the suspicion hanging over
the death of General Eshref Bitlis, Commander-General of Gendarmerie,
on 17 February 1993, together with four soldiers and a civilian when
his military plane crashed just after taking off from a military
airfield in Ankara. It also confirmed the widely-known ties between
Turkish Hizbullah murderers and the armed forces, who trained, armed
and directed the former in their dirty war against PKK and Kurdish
people. At the end of a two year-long work, the above-mentioned
Commission, had finished its job and was ready to present its 200
page-long report to the Turkish Parliament. The report was prepared
with the support of various experts and together with several
appendices amounted to more than 10,000 pages. However, this report
and its appendices were never discussed at the Parliament; they were
not even brought to the agenda of this body. Some government ministers
went so far as demanding the deletion of passages accusing "security"
forces in the report. Judge Akman Akyurek, a specialist attached to
the Commission retorted them and told: "All of the allegations in
our report are documented and probably the report covers a small
portion of the incidents." According to the 9 December 1997 issue
of daily Hurriyet, Judge Akman Akyurek was killed in Ä°stanbul in a
"car accident", the day before.
And in November 2009, in the midst of a polemic with the opposition
CHP (=Republican People's Party) Turkish Prime Minister Rejep T.
Erdogan implicitly accepted the fact that there had been a massacre
in Dersim during the fateful years of 1937-38.
* * * * * As I end this entirely inadequate portrait of Turkish state
terrorism, I have to remind the readers that Turkey still lives under
the shadow of a fascist coup d'etat made by generals on 12 September
1980 with the support of the United States. In 1982, a constitution
was drafted by the lackeys of Turkish generals and adopted in 1983
under conditions of military rule. Those generals have never been
called to account and their present-day successors wield extensive
privileges, despite certain steps the AK Party government has taken
to curb their power. Besides, almost thirty years after the fascist
coup d'etat, the 1982 constitution of the generals still remains in
force in a country that has acquired candidate membership in the EU
at the Helsinki Summit held in December 1999. The last attacks of
European police on Kurdish leaders and journalists show that much
remains the same; Western European states continue to give priority
to their economic, political and military interests and continue
courting Turkish reactionaries whose hands are stained with the blood
of hundreds of thousands or rather millions of children, women and men.
NOTES (1) Involvement of Turkish authorities and the armed forces in
drug trafficking was confirmed in the report of OGD (=Observatoire
geopolitique des drogues/ Geopolitical Drug Watch), a Paris-based
anti-narcotic body, published on 25 September 1997. OGD report
described Turkey's evolution from a transporting country for the drug
incoming from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1970s and 1980s to
a drug producing, processing and exporting country in the 1990s. The
report said that the amount of heroin seized in Turkey amounted to
about 22 percent of the world total; on the other hand, the amount
of seized, but not officially reported and stashed away heroin was
estimated to be 800-1,200 kilograms. In its report, OGD told that the
"dirty war" Turkish army was conducting against Kurdish people was
costing 10 billion US dollars yearly and drug trafficking was the main
source of finance the army was tapping for this purpose. The armed
forces were directly involved in drug trafficking, the report said,
and military personnel themselves carried large amounts of drug in
helicopters, armored personnel carriers and even on battleships!
A news item published in daily Milliyet on 28 February 1999, referred
to a U. S. State Department report entitled "International Narcotics
Control Strategy 1998" In this report Turkey was still dubbed as an
important bridge in the transport of drug to the European market. The
report told: "The amount of heroin and other illegal drugs is not
known; but according to the estimates of DEA (=Drug Enforcement
Administration), around for to six tons of heroin is consigned to
Europe every month. And about 75 percent of heroin seized in Europe has
a Turkish connection; it has been transported through Turkey or it has
been processed in Turkey or its connection with Turkish criminal gangs
has been established at the time of their seizure." The report also
mentioned the fact that, as of 30 September 1998, the amount of dirty
money deposited in Turkish banks was about 4.3 billion US dollars.
(2) Between 1993 and 2009, that is in the space of 16 years 7
parliamentary parties of Kurdish people have been banned by Turkish
authorities. These are HEP (=People's Labor Party) banned on 14 July
1993, OZDEP (=Freedom and Democracy Party) banned on 23 November 1993,
DEP (=Democracy Party) banned on 16 June 1994, DDP (=Democratic Change
Party) banned in 19 March 1996, DKP (=Democratic Mass Party) banned on
26 February 1999, HADEP (=People's Democracy Party) banned on 13 March
2003 and DTP (=Democratic Society Party) banned on 11 December 2009.
(3) Musa Anter (1920-1992) was a veteran and much respected Kurdish
journalist and poet. He was shot dead in 1992 by the agents of
Turkish Gladio in Diyarbakir, while attending festival, organised by
the local council. Orhan Miroglu, a friend who was accompanying him,
was seriously wounded in the attack. Turkey was found guilty of this
murder in 2006 by the European Court of Human Rights and was sentenced
to pay a fine of 28,500 euros. (4) Part of the Kurdish population
led by their feudal lords have taken part in the massacres conducted
against Armenian and Assyrian peoples, This, however, does not in
any way lessen the responsibility of Ottoman-Turkish reactionaries
who were the real architects of these vicious crimes.
(5) Dr. Nuri Dersimi, who wrote a book (Kurdistan Tarihinde Dersim=
Dersim in Kurdish History) later in Syria, tells the way Turkish troops
killed women and children, whose husbands and fathers had already
been massacred. Dersimi explains how troops bricked up the entrances
of the caves where women and children had taken refuge, how they lit
fires that led to the death of those inside through suffocation and
how those who tried to escape were bayoneted by the troops.
(6) After the massacre, a parliamentary subcommittee was founded to
investigate the matter. On May 2nd, 2000, the report prepared by this
subcommittee attached to the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission
was made public. Commenting on the findings of the subcommittee,
Sema Pishkinsut, an MP of Bulent Ejevit's DSP (=Democratic Left
Party) and the head of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission,
told the following: "The backs of three or four prisoners have
been riddled with gunshots. Further, we came across widespread
postmortem data, including internal dermal hemorrhage and burns, which
were not mentioned in forensic reports..." (Milliyet, 3 May 2000)
Ms. PiÅ~_kinsut also told about the burns encountered on the faces of
several political captives murdered at Ulujanlar Prison and stated:
"These marks resembled very much those that arise as a result of
acid burns... There is the likelihood that these marks have come
about owing to the use of various chemical materials, such as foam
and tear gas simultaneously and in an airless environment." (Ibid)
By : Garbis Altinoglu March Tuesday 16 2010
http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19623