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Turkey: Recent study estimates 1.2 million
Kurds forcibly displaced
10.1.2007
By Yigal Schleifer |
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January 10, 2007
The recent release of a long-awaited study on the
size of Turkey’s population of internally displaced
persons (IDPs) has refocused attention on this
enduring problem, raising questions about Ankara’s
dedication to addressing the issue.
Turkey’s IDP problem is connected to the turbulence
of the 1980’s and 1990’s, when Turkish security
forces battled guerillas from the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) in the country’s
predominantly-Kurdish southeast region. More than
30,000 individuals on both sides are believed to
have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up
arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
In an effort to root the guerillas out of the
countryside, Turkish forces forcibly evacuated
thousands of villages. The number of those displaced
has always been under dispute. The Turkish
government insisted that some 350,000 Kurds were
forced to move because of the fighting, while
Kurdish groups and human rights organization put
the number at anywhere from 1 million to 4 million.
Under pressure from the United Nations and the
European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, Ankara
commissioned in 2004 a study to determine the size
of the IDP population and their living conditions.
After some delay, the government released the study
– conducted by the Institute of Population Studies
at Hacettepe University in Ankara – in December.
The study estimates the IDP population to be
between 950,000 and 1.2 million – almost triple
the government’s original numbers. Observers say the
study’s data and its population estimate provide a
solid baseline measure to assist in the
reformulation of aid and development programs for
IDPs. It also gives a clearer indication of the
severity of the IDP problem.
"You are talking about masses of people who were
displaced without any planning and are utterly
impoverished. You had entire families emigrating
overnight, often without any property, and without
any national or international assistance," says
Dilek Kurban, a researcher at the Turkish Economic
and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), an
Istanbul-based think tank that has conducted its own
research on the IDP issue. "These people have been
displaced and abandoned for the last 10 or 15 years,
and only now are we starting to talk about justice
and compensation."
The Turkish government insists that it is tackling
the IDP problem, pointing to a 2004 compensation law
passed by parliament, intended to provide financial
restitution to displaced Kurds. Officials also play
up the Return to Village and Rehabilitation Project
(RVRP), which is supposed to help IDPs make their
way back to their homes.
But while describing both the compensation law and
RVRP as positive steps, human rights workers and
legal experts say there are serious problems with
how they have been conceived and implemented.
According to the Hacettepe University study, only 53
percent of the IDPs are aware of the compensation
law, and 50 percent know about the RVRP. Meanwhile,
in a recently released report, Human Right Watch
said the compensation law failed to offer the IDPs
"fair and appropriate redress."
"Turkey’s compensation law offered hope that the
government would finally compensate hundreds of
thousands of displaced people for their losses at
the hands of the military," said Holly Cartner,
Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights
Watch. "Now these displaced villagers have been
victimized yet again by the arbitrariness of a
compensation process that was supposedly established
to help them."
Legal experts say one of the main problems with the
law is that compensation is determined by local
assessment commissions in the areas where villages
were emptied, and whose members have little
experience with legal work or restitution issues.
According to the HRW report, this has often led the
commissions handing out absurdly low compensation
amounts. In one example, the damage assessment
commission in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir
awarded a family that has had no access to its
house, crops, or silkworm business since they were
destroyed by soldiers in 1993 an overall total of
5,000 Turkish Lira (TL) (US$3,350).
"The law was a political step," says Ilhan Bal,
general secretary of the Istanbul office of Goc-Der,
the main IDP advocacy group. "It didn’t work to
solve the real problem of the IDPs; it was merely
done for appearance’s sake."
The IDP issue goes beyond compensation, other
experts contend. The IDPs – mostly farmers in their
previous lives – have largely migrated to Turkey’s
big cities, where many have become part of the
chronic underclass. "In terms of integration into
urban areas, the government has not done anything,"
says TESEV’s Kurban. "There is no plan to deal with
these people, who need training, housing, education.
They need everything."
Tamer Aker, a professor of psychiatry at medical
school of Kocaeli University, near Istanbul, says
the IDP population also presents a public mental
health challenge that needs to be addressed. "The
migration and displacement process have been very
difficult for them. This was an involuntary
migration. They didn’t want to leave," says Aker,
who has worked closely with IDPs in the Kocaeli
area.
"There are so many traumatic issues. The problem is
widespread and needs community mental health
solutions," Aker continued.
In an Istanbul neighborhood mainly populated by IDPs,
the offices of a branch of the pro-Kurdish
Democratic Society Party (DTP) serve as the regular
meeting point for a group of former villagers from
the southeast. A 38-year-old who would only give his
name as Ramazan says he has only been able to find
sporadic work as a day laborer since being forced
out of his village 18 years ago.
"I’m simply trying to survive in Istanbul. I’m in
the big city and it’s very difficult. I come from
different earth," he says. "In the village, I was
working the land and raising cattle. I just haven’t
been able to catch up to the technological life in
the city."
His village, near the city of Tunceli in the
southeast, is still considered an off-limits
military zone, Ramazan says. Still, he longs to
return. "My children haven’t seen our village. I
hope they get the chance," he said.
According to the Hacettepe study, close to 50
percent of IDPs said they would like to return to
their villages. But Goc-Der’s Bal says there are
still serious hurdles that are keeping the IDPs from
returning. Security in the southeast remains
questionable, with clashes between government forces
and the PKK militants resuming after a lull of a few
years. Many cleared out villages are now surrounded
by mine fields that need to be cleared, while their
infrastructure -- roads, schools, sewage and
electricity – would have to be rebuilt.
"I think if the state did the necessary things,
people would go back to their villages," Bal says.
"These people need to be able to decide their own
fate."
eurasianet org
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan"
Southeast Turkey. The Kurds have no rights in
Turkey.
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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