July 23, 2009

Hürriyet (Newspaper)

Yusuf Kanlı

While still serving in office, when he was presented with a complaint that some security personnel engaged in the fight against the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, terrorism were subjecting people to summary execution, the most senior politician of the country, former President Süleyman Demirel was reported to have said, “The state cannot murder its citizens.” The parliamentary Human Rights Commission of the time reportedly did not take such reports seriously either, saying the claims were products of some foul imagination.

With a pragmatic and rather ignorant approach it could be argued that if there is a secessionist terrorist campaign continuing since 1984 and the security forces have been trying to battle that threat to national security, territorial and national integrity of the country, because of the continued impact of the continued difficult conditions and atmosphere of confrontation on the psychology of the security forces there might be some elements both in police anti-terror task force and in the military to get involved in some summary executions, which is outlawed in the country.

That will be, of course, a rather simplistic approach incompatible at all with either the notion of supremacy of law, sacredness of life or the principle that the most fundamental one of individual rights is the right of living.

Yet, revelations by “informants,” the accuracy of which cannot be verified so far, continue stressing that some civilians, as well some village guards suspected of abetting, supporting, providing information to the separatist gang or engaged in some illicit trade, such as drug trafficking, were “executed” by security personnel. There are claims that bodies of some of the victims of such summary executions were thrown in wells, or are buried secretly at locations far away from view.

A bad record

It is a fact also that as part of policy at the time, villagers were uprooted from their homes, forced to migrate and hundreds of villages were burnt. It is a fact that not only at the Diyarbakır Prison where inmates were forced to eat human excrement, villagers were forced to eat excrement in village squares in full view of other villagers. It is a fact that many people were “convinced” under torture to testify and claim responsibility for many crimes that they did not hear about until the start of their interrogation. It is a fact that this country has lost over 40,000 people in PKK related violence, most of them civilians. It is a fact that over the past almost three decades of PKK related violence, over 17,000 people were declared missing and presumed dead. It is a fact that there are cemeteries in many areas in southeastern Anatolian provinces for victims of terrorism or terrorists whose bodies were not claimed by the families or simply whose identities could not be established. The state cannot murder, but it is a fact that once there was a prime minister, a blonde lady, who was saying “to kill for the state and being killed for the state are equally sacred for us.” That is, there were people who were killing people assuming that they were killing for the state or for the defense of the state.

Crime is crime

Irrespective by who, in what outfit, where, how and in what psychological condition such crimes were committed, there can be no excuse. A crime is a crime, no one should try to ignore or present such crimes as certain acts that might be overseen because of “conditions” or some other pretext. All such claims have to be taken very seriously, investigated and whoever was responsible for them should be brought to justice. This is a duty for the state, the government, security forces and of course the Turkish judiciary.

Such investigations should not be mixed up with politically tainted probes such as Ergenekon, prejudices should be avoided and the utmost care should be attached to verification of the claims backed by hard evidence, as it would not be a surprise for anyone to eventually figure out that at least some of the claims might be baseless and aimed at nothing more than to harm the image of the state and the security forces.

It was shocking for me to read this week the latest “Wells of Death” book by eminent journalist Saygı Öztürk on the Şemdinli events. Öztürk skillfully documented how the gang staged some heinous acts and then successfully placed the blame on the security forces. Such investigations have to be continued with that awareness and should go deep and draw out what indeed might have happened. That is, such investigations should not be allowed to become propaganda tools of the separatist gang or their domestic and foreign political agents.