|
Turkey must investigate this massacre to
build Kurdish trust
20.1.2012
By Fazel Hawramy, The Guardian |
|
|
|
Locals gather in front of the bodies of people who
were killed in a warplane attack in the Ortasu
village of Uludere, in the Sirnak province [Turkey
Kurdistan], on
December 29, 2011. Turkish warplanes killed 23
Kurdish villagers in an air strike near the Iraqi
Kurdistan border when smugglers were apparently mistaken for PKK
militants, Photo: Getty Images.
See Related Links
The
bombing of innocent villagers by the Turkish army
demands justice. Relations with the Kurds depend on
it
January
20, 2012
A group of Kurdish schoolchildren and young
villagers were transporting cheap fuel into Turkey
from Iraq on 28 December. Some time after 9.30pm, as
the group reached the border area, four Turkish F-16
fighter jets launched an attack and within an hour,
34 members of the group, including 17 children, were
dead.
The Turkish army initially hailed the raid as a
success, claiming that it had killed fighters from
the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) – a group that
has waged an armed rebellion against the state since
1984. But it soon transpired that the victims were
civilians, some as young as 12. The army and the
national intelligence organisation blamed each other
for the faulty intelligence that led to the attack.
The head of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy
party (BDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, echoed the outrage
felt by many in Turkey when he called the incident a
"massacre of youths" and asked the government to
apologise to the victims' families.
Under political pressure, the government agreed to
launch an investigation. But many Kurds remain
sceptical that the government in Turkey is able or
willing to carry out a transparent and independent
investigation.
On the anniversary of the murder of Hrant Dink – a
prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist killed by
Turkish nationalists – the pressure group Human
Rights Watch has declared the state investigation
and subsequent trial of the alleged actors behind
his murder a "travesty of justice". As a result,
many in Turkey believe that the state is incapable
of investigating its own conduct. In the name of
fighting terror, the Turkish armed forces have
committed countless human rights abuses in the
Kurdish region over many decades without proper
investigation.
An examination launched in 1994 into the killing of
45 civilians in a military airstrike in the same
area that the recent massacre took place in Şırnak
province has yet to make any conclusions as to why
so many civilians died.
When the state minister for human rights, Azimet
Köylüoğlu, criticised the Turkish army for carrying
out "acts of terrorism" in the Dersim area by
burning Kurdish villages in 1994, he was banned by
the army from visiting the area.
The following year, Aliza Marcus, a Reuters
journalist, was charged with "provoking enmity and
hatred by displaying racism or regionalism" for an
article titled "Kurdish villages, the target of the
army". She was eventually acquitted but could not
report from Turkey afterwards.
This painful history has created a deep sense of
distrust among Turkey's Kurdish population towards
the state and the army. However, the government of
prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made some
progress in dealing with the Kurdish population
since coming to power in 2002. For instance, Erdoğan
apologised to the Kurdish people of Dersim on behalf
of the state for the military expedition in 1937
which killed more than 13,000 people.
In a report this month, the human rights
commissioner of the Council of Europe recognised the
progress made but also noted that the "systematic
problems concerning the administration of justice"
in Turkey mean that "the protection of the state
often takes precedence over the protection of human
rights".
This extends to the government's treatment of the
media whose journalists face continued implicit
threats, harassment or imprisonment if they publish
articles to hold politicians to account. At present,www.ekurd.net
there are almost 100 journalists in prison, and
Turkey is considered a dangerous place for
journalists. This is another reason it is so
difficult for journalists to effectively cover
incidents such as December's bombing.
By contrast, journalists who demonstrate support for
the government's narrative, particularly with regard
to the conflict in the Kurdish region, face fewer
problems. In October last year, the heads of four
Turkish news agencies made a pledge to the
government to censor the news from the Kurdish
region in the name of fighting terror.
When a high-circulation national newspaper such as
Hurriyet still displays a message next to the title
on its front page saying "Turkey belongs to Turks" (Türkiye
Türklerindir), it is difficult to believe that such
a newspaper will do justice to stories related to
Kurds, Armenians and others who are not ethnic Turks
but still citizens of the state.
Through taming the power of the army over the last
few years and gaining control of the judiciary,
Erdoğan now has the tools to investigate December's
massacre in a comprehensive and transparent way, and
thereby win the trust of Turkey's Kurdish
population.
If the government fails to investigate this incident
thoroughly and if those who ordered the airstrikes
are not brought to account, the incident has the
potential to derail the important progress that the
government of Erdoğan has made on the so-called
Kurdish question.
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency,
guardian.co.uk
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the
content of news information on this page
|
®
