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Turkey: Retired general investigated for
ordering bomb attacks in Kurdish region
29.7.2006
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ANKARA, July 28,
2006 (AFP) , -- The Turkish army said Friday it was
investigating a retired general who told a weekly
magazine that he had ordered bomb attacks in mainly
Kurdish southeast Turkey while he was stationed
there in the 1990s.
Turkey is under pressure to shed light on alleged
rogue elements in the security forces accused of
summary executions, extortion, kidnappings and
drug-smuggling in the southeast in the 1990s, the
peak years of a separatist Kurdish rebellion.
Retired general Altay Tokat told the news weekly
Yeni Aktuel that he orderded bombs thrown near the
homes of two civil servants in the region in what he
described as a move to intimidate them and make them
understand the gravity of the situation.
He did not further identify the targets of the
attacks, nor the town where they took place.
"The civil servants, the judges who come from
western Turkey do not realize how serious the
situation is (in the southeast)... They walk around
without a care, do what they want," the magazine
quoted him as saying.
"So to get them to shape up, I had (the bombs)
thrown at two spots close to their homes," Tokat
told Yeni Aktuel.
He described the attacks as carefully planned acts
of "psychological warfare" that harmed no one.
Tokat's remarks came in comments defending a deadly
hand grenade attack on a Kurdish-owned bookstore in
November in Semdinli, for which two soldiers were
each sentenced to nearly 40 years' imprisonment last
month.
The store was run by a former militant of the
separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), suspected
of continuing to collaborate with the group that has
waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in the
southeast since 1984.
"What are we supposed to do? Stand by while he (the
store owner) carries messages to the PKK? This (the
grenade attack) is called acting outside the law?
Such law is unacceptable," Tokat was quoted as
saying.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than
37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms in 1984;
both the rebels and the Turkish security forces have
been accused of grave human rights violations in the
conflict.
The magazine described Tokat as a three-star general
who retired in 1999 at the end of a 39-year career,
during which he was decorated three times, and who
now serves on the central executive board of the
far-right Nationalist Action Party.
AFP
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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