Mass graves of thousands of Kurds discovered in Turkey’s Kurdish region.

international | miscellaneous | news report Thursday March 10, 2011 02:07 by Diarmuid Breatnach - personal capacity

Turkish society is confronted with its army’s recent dark history of war with the Kurds as mass graves are unearthed in the region.

Over the years of war between Kurdish separatist guerrillas and the Turkish army and police, during the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of Kurds disappeared and were unaccounted for. Now their bodies are turning up in dozens of mass graves in the Kurdish region and in Turkey proper. Kurdish and other human rights groups are pointing the finger at the Turkish armed forces and at the government of the day.

In recent years mass graves are being discovered in Turkey’s Kurdish region. Human rights activists believe most of these were killed and secretely buried during the 1980s and 1990s, a time when the Turkish state deployed its armed forces against the PKK, the Kurdish Left national liberation army. During this time more than 4,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed to punish villagers for allegedly harbouring the guerrillas and in order to drive the inhabitants into supervised townships (like the “strategic hamlets” of the British war in Malaya and the USA’s war in Viet Nam). Huge numbers of stock were killed and crops destroyed.

But thousands of people disappeared too. Kurdish human rights defenders and political leaders complained but some of them were jailed or disappeared too, along with lawyers, teachers and trade unionists. The fear of being made to “disappear” by Turkish state forces, their undercover squads or “Hizbollah” (a state-sponsored anti-Communist group unconnected with the Islamist group in Lebannon by the same name) was so great that people often did not go to identify the bodies of PKK guerillas from their family. During this time the silence from most of the Western media was deafening and even liberal newspapers like the Guardian regularly ignored such stories or prioritised the Turkish state’s version. Few voices within Turkish society itself were raised in protest either but now it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the discussion.

A total of 88 mass graves have been discovered in the Kurdish region so far, with the human remains of 1298 people. According to the people who have catalogued them, these are the bodies of 136 Civilians, 1,150 PKK Guerillas and 12 Village Guards (Turkish-appointed officials). In addition, another 26 graves discovered in Turkey proper had a total of 171 People (89 Civilians, 82 PKK Guerrillas).

The Association of Human Rights in Turkey (IHD) states it has information on the existence of more than 100 mass graves in Bitlis province, populated mainly by Kurds. The Kurdish media is trying to raise awareness and articulate the concerns of families of the missing by reporting upon new revelations and with the evidence of the "war room" where each story testifies to the atrocities of the Turkish army during the 1990s. Testimonies from villagers and PKK guerrillas have revealed the locations of mass graves all over Turkish-controlled Kurdistan, in particular, in the cities of Bitlis, Siirt, Hakkari, Sirnak, Diyarbakir (the Kurdish capital), Batman and Bingol. Extrajudicial summary executions, bodies burned, mutilated or crushed by tanks, severed heads, fighters and villagers thrown from helicopters, signs of torture and use of chemical weapons -- crimes against humanity -- are listed by the witnesses. But the Turkish authorities and the media often keep silent.

Reyhan Yalçındağ, a lawyer and member of the IHD Honour Committee who witnessed the excavation of some mass graves, emphasised the physical and psychological consequences of the three-decade-long war in the Region: “Turkey has violated all kinds of national and international rules and agreements during the war. The United Nations' Declaration on Enforced Disappearances and the European Human Rights Convention 1998 were also violated by Turkey during this war. All files of trials conducted regarding the mass graves are kept secret. This secrecy, which also violates due process of law, prevents the victims from seeking justice”, Yalçındağ said. “Is the Government trying to avoid punishing the guilty because the crimes were committed by state officials?” she asked.

"POLITICAL KILLINGS WERE STATE POLICY".
One of the mass graves was found near a Turkish Army barracks in the eastern province of Bitlis' Mutki district. Atilla Kiyat, retired Vice Admiral said: "The unsolved political killings were a state policy between the years 1993 and 1997".

A former member of JİTEM (special Turkish Army counter-insurgency unit), Yıldırım Beğler stated that about 200 bodies are buried in a region which they have pretended to be mined. Beğler, who currently resides in Norway, told journalists that with regard to "unsolved" murders, many people were killed by torture; most of the bodies were burned in the boiler room of the Gendarmerie (Army) 2nd Border Division or thrown from helicopters. About 200 bodies were apparently dropped in the region of the Hezil stream, by bridges near the crossing into Iraq. He said: " Hundreds of executed people were thrown into the river between the two bridges within the boundaries of the 2nd Division, tied up to stones or other heavy objects.”

Emma Sinclair Webb of the U.S-based Human Rights Watch says the disappearances were part of a state policy to terrorize the local civilian population. "In the early 1990s, there was a policy of rounding of hundreds and thousands of civilians, giving no proper trial or judicial process .... There was systematic torture ... a lot of others simply were not heard of again and in that region, thousands disappeared or bodies were found, but not identified at the time and there was no attempt to discover how the killings took place or by whom. So there is massive legacy and impunity ... for the past abuses, for the disappearances and killings", Webb explains.

The BDP, the main Kurdish party, along with human rights associations such as IHD and TIHV are demanding the creation of a commission of truth and justice in order to uncover all the atrocities perpetrated in this country. The associations representing the relatives who lost their loved ones in Mesopotamia, MEYA-DER and Göç-Der, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), the Human Rights Association (IHD) and many NGOs, chambers and women rights organizations have held press conferences and led marches in Kurdish towns and cities, but also in Turkish cities such as Istanbul, where there are large Kurdish minorities.

Despite requests from human rights organisations and the families of the missing for over two weeks, the State Prosecutor of Mutki, Cetin Kucet, is refusing to order the exhumation of any body in the presence of lawyers and human rights representatives. Hasan Ceylan, the representative of the Association of Human Rights (IHD) in Bitlis, denounced the refusal as an "arbitrary" decision by the prosecutor who had blocked the process of exhumation. Barring human rights defenders from the area, excavations were carried out by Village Guards, recruited, armed and paid by the Government in Ankara against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), according to Ceylon. "We found that the Prosecutor does not want us at the graves”, he said.

Reyhan Yalçındağ, lawyer and member of the IHD Honour Committee who witnessed the excavation of some mass graves, emphasized the physical and psychological consequences of the three-decade long war in the Region: “Turkey has violated all kinds of national and international rules and agreements during the war. The United Nations' Declaration on Enforced Disappearances and the European Human Rights Convention 1998 were also violated by Turkey during this war. All files of trials conducted regarding the mass graves are kept secret. This confidentiality, which also violates due process of law, prevents the victims from seeking justice”, Yalçındağ said. “Is the government trying to avoid punishing the guilty because the crimes were committed by state officials?” she asked.

1298 KURDS BURIED IN 88 MASS GRAVES
This balance sheet was prepared in February 2011 by the Documentation Unit of IHD headquarters, based upon data received through applications to IHD and reports of the Human Rights Investigation and Research Commission, established by IHD branches:

SIIRT 1989- 1999 15 Mass Graves 5 Civilians - 201 PKK Guerrillas
BITLIS 1994- 1999 13 Mass Graves 30 Civilians - 221 PKK Guerrillas
DIYARBAKIR 1992- 1999 19 Mass Graves 10 Civilians - 206 PKK Guerrillas
VAN 1993- 1999 9 Mass Graves 149 PKK Guerrillas
BATMAN 1993-1999 8 Mass Graves 2 Civilians - 100 PKK Guerrillas (6 women- 11 unarmed)
HAKKARI 1993-1999 6 Mass Graves 2 Civilians - 54 PKK Guerrillas- 12 Village Guards
BINGOL 1996-2000 5 Mass Graves 4 Civilians - 53 PKK Guerrillas
SIRNAK 1994- 4 Mass Graves 80 Civilians (6 babies) -Tens of PKK Guerrillas (in BOTAS wells)
MARDIN 1990- 4 Mass Graves 3 Civilians - 35 PKK Guerrillas
ELAZIG 1993-2010 1 Mass Grave 50 PKK Guerrillas
AGRI 1989-1994 1 Mass Grave 5 Civilians- 36 PKK Guerrillas
DERSIM 1997- 1 Mass Grave 19 PKK Guerrillas
IGDIR 1994- 1 Mass Grave 16 PKK Guerrillas (4 women)
GAZIANTEP 1994- 1 Mass Grave 10 PKK Guerrillas
TOTAL 88 MASS GRAVES 1298 PEOPLE
(136 Civilians, 1150 PKK Guerrillas, 12 village guards)

MASS GRAVES OPENED IN TURKEY
DATE OF OPENING NUMBER OF THE GRAVES NUMBER OF BODIES FOUND
1989-2010 2003-2010 26 Mass Graves 171 People
(89 Civilians, 82 PKK Guerrillas )