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Shedding light on the Zilan Massacre in
Turkey
22.6.2012
By Emiko Jozuka for SES Türkiye in Ercis
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Ekurd.net |
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Headline of the daily Cumhuriyet dated July 13,
1930: Cleaning started, the ones at Zeylân valley
were completely annihilated, None of them survived,
operation at Ağrı are continuing. Ankara 12 (With
telephone) ... According to latest information, the
cleaning in districts of Erciş, Mount Süphan and
Zeylân was completely finished. Photo: Wikipedia.org
The valley of Zilan. Photo: Emiko Jozuka
The descendent of a massacre victim reflects near
the spot where his relatives were killed. Photo:
Emiko Jozuka
A former police station, now a house, where 70
people were killed. Photo: Emiko Jozuka.
Zilan valley located to the
north of the town of Erciş in the Kurdish province
of Van, the Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey,
aka (northern Kurdistan). Nearly 82 years after the
Zilan Massacre, the truth behind the killings and
events of July 1930 is slowly emerging.
June 22, 2012
ERCIS, The Kurdish
region of Turkey, —
The noise of a small river running over stones
and an occasional birdsong are the only sounds that
seep into the rural valley of Zilan. Few are aware
of, or even remember that in July 1930, the same
valley bore witness to unprecedented slaughter.
Mehmet Tastan, 94, still vividly remembers the
fateful day that a simple trip to deliver food to
his father working in the fields turned into a
nightmare he barely managed to survive.
"They [the soldiers] rounded people up in Kunduk
valley. People were being killed with rifles and
machine guns. I wasn't able to do anything, I could
only watch what went on from afar," Tastan told SES
Türkiye. "We weren't guilty of anything. Even at
this age, I don't know why; I can't understand why
that many people were killed."
An understudied and largely undisclosed chapter in
Turkey's history, little light has been shed on the
devastating Zilan Massacres, which were carried out
in response to the Kurdish uprising in Ağri province
in 1930.
At Zilan, systematic killings of Kurdish men, women
and children were followed by imprisonments, exile
of whole families and villages to western Turkey and
property confiscations.
From the founding of the republic to 1938, Turkey
faced 18 revolts, 17 of which occurred in eastern
Anatolia; 16 involved Kurds. Along with the Sheikh
Said Rebellion (1925) and Dersim (1937-38),www.ekurd.net
the events surrounding Zilan were one of several
acts of violence directed against the Kurds during
the early years of the Republic as the state sought
to consolidate control.
Eighty-two years after the destruction of 44
villages and the deaths of 15,000 Kurds according to
official records, and 47,000 deaths cited by local
sources, efforts are being made to raise awareness
of Zilan.
Prompted by local Mehmet Gurbuz, who has applied to
the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in order
to make the massacres known and reclaim confiscated
property, other descendants of massacre victims are
slowly preparing to present their cases to the ECHR.
Yet a deeply ingrained fear and a lack of central
organisation still prevents many from speaking out
against the atrocities committed against their
ancestors.
According to the author of the book Agri Rebellion
and the Zilan Massacre, published in 2010, Sedat
Ulugana -- himself a massacre victim descendent --
little has been done by the government to uncover
what really happened in Zilan.
"The number of people killed at Zilan is more than
that of Dersim, but the government doesn't want this
to be known because then it might have to pay
compensation to people. In any case, people here are
still too scared to apply to the ECHR," explained
Ulugana.
He asserted that he was determined to voice the
wrongdoings committed against Kurds in 1930, and
open up a previously silenced chapter in history.
Yet breaking this silence has not been easy. Along
with the one-party state that prevailed in Turkey
until 1946, the untouchable notion of Turkishness,
periods of military rule and martial law in the
southeast silenced dissident voices who dared speak
out against the state or claim a different identity.
"If one asks why there isn't enough research on [Zilan],
the reason is that people lived in oppression for a
long time. Until ten years ago, you wouldn't even
have easily come across the name Zilan -- you
wouldn't even have been able to say Zilan, or say
that you were Kurdish," explained lawyer and former
president of the Muş Human Rights Organisation,
Vedat Sengol.
Although locals are slowly mobilising and preparing
to submit their cases to the ECHR, Sengol said that
without effective organisation, it would be
difficult to bring the Zilan case into the
international spotlight.
"Mehmet Gurbuz's case was a step in the right
direction. There a few more cases similar to his but
we should gather these together in a more organised
way. There should be a civil society that can
research this topic. People with an interest in this
matter could come together and found a research
institute. Such a presence would be stronger than
proceeding with the research alone," he explained.
"The archives to do with Dersim have only been
accessible to researchers in the last two years, and
information has only recently been open to the media
and the public," continued Sengol.
In early June, the Turkish General Directorate of
Police announced it was handing over nearly 500,000
files consisting of 250 million documents dating
from before 1963 to the State Archives. The files,
which will be open to the public, could help to shed
light on darker episodes in Turkey's history,
including the Kurdish rebellions and Zilan.
In an unprecedented move last November, Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologised on behalf
of the state for the events surrounding Dersim, in
which at least 13,000 Kurds were killed. The apology
opened that previously closed chapter in Turkish
history and paved the way for public discussion. The
apology was interpreted as a possible prelude to
apologies for other atrocities committed under the
Turkish Republic.
Published by Ekurd.net in cooperation with Southeast
European Times.
Copyright © respective author or news agency, setimes.com
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