Today’s Zaman, Turkey
August 1 2010
Future not clear for residents of ethnically divided town
`Let whatever will happen, happen’ was the most frequently heard
sentence in Hatay’s Dörtyol district this week while the rest of
Turkey watched the ethnic rift here with fear, anxiety and question
marks regarding the future of the whole country.
However, this does not mean the same feelings did not exist in this
Mediterranean district, home to almost 70,000. `My wife is a Turk and,
after the events, we promised to call each other every half hour,’ a
young man told Sunday’s Zaman in the predominantly Kurdish town of
Mezbaha. He says in 1992 a friend of his from Diyarbakır had told him
that one day Kurds who live in the western parts of Turkey would be
forced to return to their hometowns.
`But, how?’ he asks. Another man sitting and listening to our
conversation interrupted. `Two of my sisters are married to Turks
here. I cannot leave them behind,’ he said. Whether in downtown or on
the outskirts of the town, no one here wishes to give out their full
name. They say everyone knows each other here and that from now on,
they should be very careful.
True, everyone knows each other in this town but, as one local
journalist says, they are also producing stories about each other. `I
used to ride a bike here, but people said a lawyer should not do that.
I had to give up because I lost my clients. I grew a round beard, but
then they said I was an Armenian even though my family is well known
around here. The nearest movie theater is one hour away and social
life is next to nonexistent. The only thing left for people to do is
gossip about others,’ Akif Ã-zer, a young lawyer, told Sunday’s Zaman.
In addition to this, the rumor mill is hard at work. At the beginning
of the events that split the whole town along ethnic lines, four
policemen were killed in an ambush allegedly organized by the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Monday evening. But after the
terrorist attack, the story that spread through the town was
different; people began telling each other that the main police
station was under fire.
After the false story spread, witnesses say people rushed to the main
police station. Another false story then sprung up: that the
perpetrators were caught and were at the station. The crowd demanded
they be handed over. The police asked the crowd to disperse, and it
eventually did, but they headed to the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy
Party (BDP) branch in the town and burned it down.
The next day, at midday, some Kurds started to gather in the town’s
small bus station and, according to witnesses, were unsure about what
to do. But people who heard Kurds were gathering rushed to the scene.
The Kurds dispersed, but the crowd attacked some shops whose owners
were known to be Kurdish.
Whoever we spoke with in the town, whether they sided with the Turks
or the Kurds or tried to remain neutral, accuses the police. Kemal
Arıkan is one of them. According to him, had the funerals of the slain
policemen taken place in the town, the people would have been able to
grieve and would feel less angry. Galip Akyol, whose café was
destroyed, says the police did nothing to prevent the mob from
attacking shops. A dentist adds that the police are very eager to act
when it comes to other social disturbances but did not show the same
reaction when all these things were happening.
But nobody mentions the fact that the police prevented possible
bloodshed by not letting two rival groups meet when they started to
walk towards each other on Thursday after BDP officials who were
coming from Diyarbakır, among them party chairman Selahattin DemirtaÅ?,
were not allowed to enter Hatay. (See our story of Friday.)
First bullet, last bullet
Sunday’s Zaman first drew attention to a possible ethnic rift in 2007,
when it ran a story under the headline “Town of the First Bullet’
Ayvalık reveals bitter ethnic rift.’
Ayvalık was proud of being the place where the War of Independence
first began to free the land of Greek occupation, with the claim that
the town’s Greeks were cooperating with the occupying forces. Here in
Dörtyol, the inhabitants are also very proud of living in a place
where the first bullet of the War of Independence was fired, but this
time against French occupying forces, allegedly with the cooperation
of local Armenians. Several years ago the chief of General Staff
published a note underlying that the first bullet was fired in
Dörtyol. This information entered school textbooks two years ago. Just
as in Ayvalık, when locals talk about current events, they mention the
first bullet, though they add, `If necessary, the last bullet will be
fired here, too.’
Another similarity between Ayvalık and Dörtyol is the economic
situation of both towns and rumors about the economic position of the
Kurds, who migrated to both places en masse during the 1990s when the
situation in southeastern Anatolia was unbearable, as almost 4,000
villages were forcibly evacuated, extrajudicial killings commonplace,
clashes were never ending and many people became victims of forced
disappearance. Some of the alleged perpetrators are facing trial today
as part of the ongoing investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine
organization that sought to overturn the government by creating chaos
and internal strife.
Both Ayvalık and Dörtyol have huge economic potential, but this
potential has not been realized in either town. Both are located on
extremely fertile land; Ayvalık has much potential for tourism, while
Dörtyol has a developing industry and is located at the crossroads of
oil pipelines. Its mining sector is also developing.
One year after Sunday’s Zaman ran the story on Ayvalık, two people
were killed there in a clash that turned into an ethnic conflict.
In these towns are rumors that Kurds are investing money given them by
the PKK or that they are laundering money for the PKK — at least
that’s what the grapevine would have you believe.
When Sunday’s Zaman spoke with members of the mob that was
demonstrating against the Kurds in Dörtyol on Thursday, the people
claimed that the Kurds first came to the town as seasonal workers, but
that some became rich.
`They took money from the PKK and lent it to the people with
interest,’ a very angry man, who referred to the Kurds using
dehumanizing language, said. Another added that the Kurds had started
to buy land on which they used to work and that they get the money to
do so from the PKK. Another one shouted that they do not respect the
flag. `If they continue doing what they’re doing, they will face the
same end as the Armenians,’ he said. Another said that when the Kurds
have weddings, they wave red, yellow and green fabric downtown.
Respect for the flag
But Akyol, whose café was attacked, says they are respectful to the
flag but the Dörtyol Turks are not, and he talks about a wedding
tradition in the town which is confirmed by the locals also:
`There is a tradition here called a `flag meal.’ They place an onion
on top of a flag. Then everybody starts to shoot the onion with their
gun while children throw stones at it. The one who hits the onion is
rewarded. But, of course, this leaves many holes in the flag and
renders it useless,’ he said, adding that if the Kurds did the same,
they would be lynched.
He also recalled stories his grandmother told him, including one about
104 young men who left their village to fight at Ã?anakkale, with only
four able to return. But in another part of town Arıkan says not a
single Kurd fought at Ã?anakkale.
Regardless of who says what and who believes what rumor, almost
everyone in the town agrees that it will be difficult to live together
from now on. Ä°.A., a community leader who asked that his name be
withheld, says there are three possibilities from now on. The first is
that the Kurds will live under police protection — but for how long,
he asks. The second is that the Kurds, like the Armenians, will have
to leave, and the third is that they will start to oppose the PKK
instead of supporting it.
Speaking along the same lines, Dörtyol Chamber of Craftsman President
Kadir Tekgöz on Friday urged the people to employ common sense but
added that the Kurds living in the town should condemn through a
declaration the attack on the four policemen.
The people have guns
Like Ä°.A., many people drew attention to one dangerous possibility. He
said many people in the town are hunters, leading to a prevalence of
guns in the area. And this past week, large numbers of people bought
bullets, he added.
Süleyman Ã-. agreed, saying he was against guns but is thinking about
having one just because it will be the only way from now on.
Hayri Sandıkçı, the district governor, says he has organized meetings
with community leaders and believes that the situation will calm down.
Dörtyol Mayor Fadıl Keskin agrees but adds that the situation will do
so only if there are no new provocations.
But then again, regardless of who is speaking, almost everyone says
their next-door neighbors, colleagues, people they do business with or
spouses from other ethnic groups are good people. They are not like
other members of their ethnic group. Everyone agrees on another
matter: The uneducated did these things.
——————————————————————————–
İnegöl becomes battlefield as minor scuffle turns into ethnic lynching
A quarrel in a small coffeehouse in İnegöl, Bursa province, turned
bloody when three individuals armed with knives and sticks attacked
several people late Sunday night. Eleven of the 50 individuals
detained in the aftermath of the incidents in İnegöl over the weekend
were arrested on Thursday.
Three men, Mehmet Å?erif S. (23), Mehmet S. (31) and Å?enol S. (25),
entered a coffeehouse in Ä°negöl’s Orhaniye district and got into and
argument with Selahattin O. (26), Metin B. (36) and Å?aban D. (47), who
died in the ensuing fight.
People wounded in the altercation were hospitalized, and the three
assailants as well as several others believed to have started riots in
the town were detained. Locals said the quarrel was a result of
animosity between two families, one of them from southeastern Turkey
and of Kurdish ethnicity.
As the families of the wounded gathered at the İnegöl Police Station,
erroneous news that some of the wounded had died came from the
hospital. The events suddenly turned into an ethnic clash, and
hundreds of people then stoned the town’s municipal building,
demanding that the police hand over the attackers. Locals reported
that alcohol was involved. The attackers set police cars on fire,
broke the windows of a bank and threw stones at ambulances. The
incidents led to the closing down of the Bursa-Ankara highway.
Interior Minister BeÅ?ir Atalay has said the violent quarrel in the
city of İnegöl in Bursa province on Sunday was neither politically nor
ideologically motivated, underlining that it was a spontaneous
incident rather than a planned one.
Atalay traveled to Ä°negöl on Thursday with National Police Chief OÄ?uz
KaÄ?an Köksal to meet with local authorities and civil society groups
about Sunday’s unrest. Atalay called a press conference at the Ä°negöl
municipal building after his meeting with Mayor Alinur AktaÅ?. Noting
that he had discussed the issue with the local authorities, Atalay
said he could say in light of the information he received that the
incident was an ordinary quarrel that could be witnessed anywhere in
Turkey, dismissing claims that the incident was an ethnic clash
between Kurds and Turks.
`I want to underline that there are no political or ideological
motives behind this incident. It took place totally spontaneously.
This is not an incident that was planned beforehand. This is one of
our initial findings. It is all a quarrel between two bus drivers,’
Atalay said.
01 August 2010, Sunday
AYÅ?E KARABAT ANKARA
From: A. Papazian
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-217787-101-future-not-clear-for-residents-of-ethnically-divided-town.html