The National, UAE
March 2 2012
Rights group accuses Turkey of covering up its ‘dirty war’
by Thomas Seibert
ISTANBUL // A Turkish human-rights group has accused authorities of
trying to block an investigation into suspected extrajudicial killings
by security forces in the Kurdish region of the countryÛ’
Up to 10,000 civilians disappeared in the Kurdish region during the
1990s, according to the Human Rights Association (IHD). The area saw
the heaviest fighting between Turkish security forces and the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a separatist rebel group that launched
a guerrilla war against Ankara in 1984Û’
Observers said bringing serving or former policemen, soldiers or
intelligence agents to justice for killing Kurdish civilians would be
an important step to overcome mistrust between Turkey’s estimated 12
million Kurds and the Turkish state and to solve the long-running
Kurdish conflictÛ’
“If the Turkish state really wanted to, exact locations of mass graves
[of victims} and documents relating to the [killings in the 1990s]
would have been published by now,” Raci Bilici, chairman of the
chapter of the IHD in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, said. “But the
state does not want to.”
He was speaking after a state forensic institute ruled that human
remains found on the grounds of a former interrogation centre run by a
notorious intelligence unit in Diyarbakir, were not victims of
unlawful killings in the Kurdish conflict. Mr Bilici said he did not
believe the institute’s report was accurate and called for an
independent inquiryÛ’
Several state prosecutors in the Kurdish region have been
investigating cases of alleged killings by members of the security
forces in a dirty war against suspected PKK sympathisers, but there
have been no conviction so farÛ’
In some cases, the bodies of the missing were found later, but the
remains of many people have never been recovered. Jitem, a now-defunct
special forces and intelligence unit of the paramilitary gendarmerie,
is suspected of having been involved in many of the killingsÛ’
“It is important for the Kurdish conflict and for the general issue of
questioning authoritarianism,” Beril Dedeoglu, a political scientist
at Istanbul’s Galatasaray University, said about the excavation of
suspected mass graves and the investigations. The government needed
the political will to clear up the crimes and bring state officials to
justice if necessary, and investigations should be conducted with
transparency, Prof Dedeoglu said this week. “It is very important.”
Testimony of witnesses and former soldiers point to an involvement of
government forces in the killings. Last week, a witness in a trial
against 16 former Jitem members told the court that officers of the
unit killed Musa Anter, a well-known Kurdish writer, in 1992. A former
Turkish admiral, Atilla Kiyat, has told the court in another case
involving a military officer accused of atrocities the killings of
Kurdish activists had been a “state policy”. The retired admiral
testified in February 2011 as a witness in the trial against Colonel
Cemal Temizoz, who is accused of involvement in the death of 52
Kurdish civilians between 1992 and 1995Û’
According to the IHD, victims of suspected extrajudicial killings have
been buried in 253 different places in Turkey, but only 29 of the
graves have been opened so far. Last week, prosecutors in Mardin
province, also in the Kurdish area, oversaw the excavation of a skull,
bones and clothes at one grave. The prosecutors have been
investigating the deaths of six people who were called in for
questioning by the security forces in 1995 and were never seen againÛ’
In what was initially seen as a boost for efforts to clear up the
crimes, workers digging a ditch for a natural gas pipe in January
found human skulls in Ickale, a part of Diyarbakir’s old town used as
a Jitem interrogation centre in the 1990s. The site was cordoned off
by state prosecutors and excavations were expanded. A total 34 skulls
have been located so farÛ’
But this week, a report by a state forensic institute said skulls and
other bones found in Diyarbakir could not be the remains of victims of
unlawful Jitem killings because they were at least a hundred years
old. Mr Bilici said he did not trust the report of the Forensic
Institute in Istanbul because the institution had taken the side of
the authorities in other cases involving suspected human-rights abuses
by security forces. “Our trust has been poisoned,” he saidÛ’
Mr Bilici said the investigation should have been conducted according
to the so-called Minnesota Protocol, an agreement that Turkey has
signed and that states “a special commission of inquiry” should be
established in cases where the involvement of government forces in
crimes is suspectedÛ’
In the case of the suspected mass graves of Jitem victims in
Diyarbakir, state prosecutors decided to keep the investigation
strictly confidential, without the participation of non-governmental
organisations or independent experts, he saidÛ’
“Independent inquiries are needed to face the past,” Mr Bilici said.
He said the IHD would continue to campaign for the opening of mass
graves in the Kurdish region despite the apparent setback in
DiyarbakirÛ’
The state prosecution in the city said in a statement quoted by
Turkish media yesterday that genetic tests on some samples were
continuing. The prosecution did not say whether the investigation
would continue, and it is unclear whose remains were found in IckaleÛ’
Prof Dedeoglu, the political scientist in Istanbul, said the skulls
could belong to Armenians killed during massacres in the First World
War. “They were looking for Kurds, but they found Armenians,” she
saidÛ’
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/europe/rights-group-accuses-turkey-of-covering-up-its-dirty-war